Phishing Activity in Hosting Networks (ASNs)
February 1, 2021 - April 30, 2021
To see where phishing sites were being hosted, we collected the IP addresses that phishing domains and phishing URLs were resolving to when phishing activity was detected and added to a threat or block list. We then identified the ASN where the IP prefix containing the IP address of the phish is allocated and this number identifies the hosting network where phishing attacks were reported.
For the February 1, 2021 to April 30, 2021 period, we identified
- 161 hosting networks with 100 or more reported phishing attacks.
- 54 hosting networks with 500 or more reported phishing attacks. and
- 27 hosting networks with 1000 or more reported phishing attacks.
- 4 hosting networks with 5000 or more reported phishing attacks.
We measure phishing attacks to show where phishing sites are hosted and to identify the hosting service that has been allocated the IPv4 address space wherein the IP address of the phishing site lies.
A phisher may use one, several, or large numbers of URLs in a single phishing campaign. We apply rules to our phishing reports to de-duplicate URLs and to analyze hostname, URL path composition, target, and abuse report dates for similarities to obtain sets of URLs that we consider to be involved in one phishing attack. We also apply additional rules to group URLs into attacks based on observed cases.
In the table below, we show the twenty hosting networks with the highest numbers of reported phishing attacks.
Ranking of Hosting Networks (ASNs) by Phishing Attacks (February to April 2021)
Rank | AS Name | AS number | # Routed IPv4 Addresses |
Phishing Attacks ▼ | Phishing Attack Score |
1 | NAMECHEAP-NET | 22612 | 79,872 | 19,018 | 2381.06 |
2 | CLOUDFLARENET | 13335 | 2,334,464 | 17,392 | 74.50 |
3 | UNIFIEDLAYER-AS-1 | 46606 | 1,391,360 | 8,915 | 64.07 |
4 | DIGITALOCEAN-ASN | 14061 | 2,466,560 | 5,367 | 21.76 |
5 | 15169 | 23,094,784 | 4,713 | 2.04 | |
6 | AMAZON-02 | 16509 | 38,892,032 | 3,687 | 0.95 |
7 | AWEX - Hostinger International Limited | 204915 | 768 | 3,402 | 44296.88 |
8 | DDOS-GUARD CORP. | 262254 | 17,152 | 3,073 | 1791.63 |
9 | OVH - OVH SAS | 16276 | 3,814,656 | 2,969 | 7.78 |
10 | ASN-QUADRANET-GLOBAL | 8100 | 686,592 | 2,766 | 40.29 |
11 | IDNIC-JALANET-AS-ID PT. Jupiter Jala Arta | 131775 | 2,560 | 2,632 | 10281.25 |
12 | MICROSOFT-CORP-MSN-AS-BLOCK | 8075 | 38,045,440 | 2,544 | 0.67 |
13 | WEEBLY | 27647 | 2,048 | 2,343 | 11440.43 |
14 | HETZNER-AS - Hetzner Online GmbH | 24940 | 2,042,368 | 2,334 | 11.43 |
15 | CONTABO - Contabo GmbH | 51167 | 226,048 | 2,165 | 95.78 |
16 | AMAZON-AES | 14618 | 16,318,464 | 1,731 | 1.06 |
17 | AS-CHOOPA | 20473 | 1,004,032 | 1,709 | 17.02 |
18 | GD-EMEA-DC-SXB1 - Host Europe GmbH | 8972 | 406,016 | 1,512 | 37.24 |
19 | AS-COLOCROSSING | 36352 | 789,760 | 1,509 | 19.11 |
20 | LAYER-HOST | 46573 | 407,808 | 1,412 | 34.62 |
To allow comparison of large and small Hosting Networks (ASNs), we also rank Hosting Networks based on a metric, phishing attack score, which is calculated by dividing the number phishing attacks reported against an ASN by the number of routable IPv4 addresses allocated to that ASN.
Hosting (ASN) Phishing Attack Score = (number of phishing attacks/IP Addresses in ASN) * 10,000
In the table below, we show the top 20 hosting operators based on phishing attack score.
Ranking of Hosting Networks (ASNs) by Phishing Attack Score (February to April 2021)
Hosting Networks (ASNs) with a minimum of 50,000 IPv4 addresses and 25 phishing attacks
Rank | AS Name | AS number | # Routed IPv4 Addresses |
Phishing attacks | Phishing Attack Score ▼ |
1 | NAMECHEAP-NET | 22612 | 79,872 | 19,018 | 2381.06 |
2 | AS-REGRU - "Domain names registrar REG.RU", Ltd | 197695 | 93,440 | 1,285 | 137.52 |
3 | IMH-WEST | 22611 | 62,720 | 726 | 115.75 |
4 | INMOTI-1 | 54641 | 54,784 | 580 | 105.87 |
5 | CONTABO - Contabo GmbH | 51167 | 226,048 | 2,165 | 95.78 |
6 | AS-HOSTINGER - Hostinger International Limited | 47583 | 89,856 | 687 | 76.46 |
7 | CLOUDFLARENET | 13335 | 2,334,464 | 17,392 | 74.50 |
8 | UNIFIEDLAYER-AS-1 | 46606 | 1,391,360 | 8,915 | 64.07 |
9 | SUNHK-DATA-AS-AP Sun Network (Hong Kong) Limited - HongKong Backbone | 38197 | 91,392 | 575 | 62.92 |
10 | VELIANET-AS - Host Europe GmbH | 29066 | 81,408 | 449 | 55.15 |
11 | XSERVER Xserver Inc. | 131965 | 60,928 | 335 | 54.98 |
12 | PONYNET | 53667 | 60,416 | 273 | 45.19 |
13 | AS-30083-GO-DADDY-COM-LLC | 30083 | 66,816 | 294 | 44.00 |
14 | RACKRAY - UAB Rakrejus | 62282 | 58,880 | 254 | 43.14 |
15 | ASN-QUADRANET-GLOBAL | 8100 | 686,592 | 2,766 | 40.29 |
16 | NFORCE - NForce Entertainment B.V. | 43350 | 88,576 | 336 | 37.93 |
17 | GD-EMEA-DC-SXB1 - Host Europe GmbH | 8972 | 406,016 | 1,512 | 37.24 |
18 | ALCHEMYNET | 7296 | 73,216 | 264 | 36.06 |
19 | A2HOSTING | 55293 | 140,800 | 496 | 35.23 |
20 | LAYER-HOST | 46573 | 407,808 | 1,412 | 34.62 |
Activity in Hosting Networks (ASNs)