APWG

What APWG does

APWG (Anti-Phishing Working Group, Inc.) is a non-profit association founded in 2003 that operates the global counter-cybercrime coordination infrastructure for industry, law enforcement, government, and academia. Its central platform is the eCrime eXchange (eCX), a sectoral risk clearinghouse operational since 2004 that exchanges six categories of cybercrime event data — phishing URLs, phishing emails, malicious IP addresses, fraudulent domains, cryptocurrency wallet addresses, and malicious SMS/text metadata — through a RESTful API and web UI, with each record carrying a numeric Confidence Factor to guide consumer automation. APWG reports over 2,200 member companies and agencies worldwide and validates eCX's data quality through third-party academic research (ASU PhishFarm, IEEE S&P 2019) showing eCX records generate the highest crawler traffic of any comparable entity.

The organization's business model combines tiered membership fees (Premium, Corporate, Sponsoring Members), corporate sponsorships across Platinum/Gold/Silver/Bronze tiers, and conference revenue from the annual eCrime Symposium (21st edition in Lisbon, November 2-6, 2026; $350 per ticket, ~1,000-seat capacity). Pricing for memberships is not publicly disclosed and requires inquiry. Supporting programs include the Phishing Activity Trends Reports (since 2004), Global Phishing Surveys (since 2007), the Crypto Currency Working Group (CCWG, launched 2018), the eCrime Researchers Scholarship Program (since 2006), and public phishing/smishing reporting services that feed back into the eCX clearinghouse. The organization has a lean staff of 1-10 employees and operates without disclosed venture or PE backing.

APWG's go-to-market is community-led rather than commercial: it unifies the counter-cybercrime response through curated data exchange, peer-reviewed research (eCrime is the only peer-reviewed publishing conference exclusively focused on cybercrime), policy engagement, and public awareness. Strategic alliances include IEEE Computer Society (Technical Sponsor since 2007), M3AAWG, ICANN, CAIDA, Spamhaus, and named sponsors including Hitachi, Verisign, ESET, Amazon, and KnowBe4. The organization has recently deployed an MCP server to enable AI-native semantic querying of eCX, positioning the data clearinghouse for downstream AI agent consumption.

Name

APWG

Legal name

Anti-Phishing Working Group, Inc

Website

https://apwg.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2003

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

APWG is a non-profit counter-cybercrime association operating the eCrime eXchange (eCX) data clearinghouse since 2004, serving 2,200+ member organizations across security vendors, cryptocurrency exchanges, law enforcement, government, and academia with curated phishing and cybercrime event data.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Cybersecurity Threat Intelligence

NAICS

Web Search Portals and All Other Information Services (51929)

akta.pro primary industry

Marketplace & Platform Trust & Safety (Buyer/Seller Abuse) (HDADALAI)

akta.pro secondary industries

Fraud Detection, Scam Prevention & Account Takeover (Crypto) (FSADALAF), Blockchain Analytics & Transaction Monitoring (FSADALAB)

Keywords

• Cybercrime data clearinghouse
• Anti-phishing research
• Threat intelligence exchange
• Electronic crime symposium
• Cybersecurity membership consortium

Headquarters

HQ city

Lexington

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Membership Fees: APWG offers tiered membership (Premium Members, Corporate Members, Sponsoring Members) for cybercrime professionals from industry, law enforcement, government and university researchers globally. Members gain access to the eCX data clearinghouse and member-only resources.
2. Conference Attendance: APWG organizes the annual eCrime symposium (21st annual in 2026). Conference tickets are sold at $350.00 per seat with a capacity of 1000 attendees. Includes training sessions, general sessions, and networking events.
3. Corporate Sponsorships: APWG depends on sponsoring members to manage its numerous programs. Sponsorship opportunities at multiple tiers (Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, Founding Sponsor) for the eCrime conference and ongoing programs.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

APWG operates the eCrime Exchange (eCX), a sectoral cybercrime data clearinghouse operational since 2004 that curates and exchanges phishing URLs, malicious IPs, fraudulent domains, cryptocurrency wallet addresses, phishing emails, and SMS metadata with Confidence Factors via RESTful API and Web UI to member organizations. The organization complements this with quarterly Phishing Activity Trends Reports, the Global Phishing Survey, the Crypto Currency Working Group, public phishing/smishing reporting services, and the annual peer-reviewed eCrime symposium serving 2,200+ member companies, agencies, and researchers worldwide.

Product overview

APWG (Anti-Phishing Working Group) is a non-profit organization that unifies the global response to cybercrime through curated data exchange, research, public policy, and awareness messaging. Its core product is the eCrime eXchange (eCX), a sectoral risk data clearinghouse for cybercrime-related machine events and Internet events (phishing URLs, malicious IPs, fraudulent domains, cryptocurrency wallet addresses, email data, and SMS metadata). Supporting products include Phishing Activity Trends Reports (quarterly/annual since 2004), Global Phishing Survey reports (since 2007), the Cryptocurrency Anti-Phishing Working Group (launched 2018), the eCrime Researchers Scholarship Program (since 2006), and the annual eCrime Conference (21st edition in 2026). APWG members also have access to public reporting services for phishing emails and smishing. The eCX is available to members via RESTful API and Web UI.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• eCrime Exchange (eCX) The oldest and most trusted cybercrime event-data clearinghouse, purpose-built for curated exchange of phishing URLs, malicious IP addresses, fraudulent domain names, cryptocurrency wallet addresses, phishing email data (headers, body, images), and malicious SMS/text metadata. Each record carries a Confidence Factor to guide data consumers on reliability and automation potential. Available to APWG members via RESTful API and Web UI, distributing billions of data field elements per month globally.
• Phishing Activity Trends Report Quarterly and annual reports analyzing phishing attacks reported by APWG member companies, Research Partners, and the general public. The reports measure cybercrime evolution and propagation, serving as the industry standard reference for cybercrime measurement and trends.
• Global Phishing Survey Comprehensive reports examining all phishing attacks detected over specific time intervals, quantifying the scope of the global phishing problem. Reports analyze domain name use, targeted brands, TLD distribution, and malicious registration patterns.
• APWG Crypto Currency Working Group (CCWG) A working group formed in 2018 that enables cryptocurrency exchanges, wallets, trading platforms, investment funds, and consumers to submit and receive real-time phishing information via the eCX clearinghouse, protecting over 100 million consumers of cryptocurrency assets.
• eCrime Researchers Scholarship Program A scholarship program organized in 2006 that supports university researchers in cybercrime research through conference travel support and cash awards for highest-scoring peer-reviewed papers at the annual eCrime Researchers Summit.
• Phishing Email Reporting Service A public service enabling users to report phishing emails via apwg.org/reportphishing. Reports are examined by APWG members and re-lodged on eCX as high-confidence records, serving as the gold standard for automated responses maintained by APWG members.
• Smishing (SMS Phishing) Reporting Service A service for reporting malicious SMS or text messages via apwg.org/sms. Reports are reviewed by APWG member responders and researchers to track and block senders and reduce future victimizations.
• eCrime Conference (Annual Symposium) The annual APWG eCrime Symposium on Electronic Crime Research. The 2026 edition (eCrime 2026) is the 21st annual peer-reviewed, publishing symposium, held November 2-6 in Lisbon. Features training sessions, peer-reviewed paper presentations, general sessions, chalk talks, and a policy roundtable. Ticket price $350 with discounts for students, IEEE members, university researchers, government personnel, and law enforcement.

Quantifiable outcome

• Phishing attacks rose 13.8% in early 2026, from 853,244 in Q4 2025 to 971,181 in Q1 2026
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers5 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Twelve partnerships are on record, tiered core, major and minor.

• IEEE Computer Society — Technical Community on Security & PrivacycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe IEEE Computer Society's Technical Community on Security & Privacy has stood as Technical Sponsor of the APWG eCrime symposium series since 2007. IEEE has served as Technical Sponsor since 2007 and publisher of eCrime Research Summit papers and proceedings through the IEEE Xplore Digital Library since 2008. IEEE-SA is also a patron of the eCrime Fighters Scholarship Program.
• Hitachi (Hitachi Systems Security)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerHitachi is listed as a Founding Sponsor / Member of APWG eCrime conferences. Hitachi Systems Security has been a long-term supporter of APWG's counter-cybercrime programs and the eCrime symposium series.
• VerisignmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerVerisign is a Gold Sponsor / Member of APWG eCrime 2025, supporting the symposium and APWG's programs. Verisign is a leading domain name registry services provider.
• ESETmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerESET is a Silver Sponsor / Member of APWG eCrime 2025. ESET is a security vendor that participates in APWG programs and contributes to the counter-cybercrime community.
• AmazonmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerAmazon is a Bronze Sponsor / Member of APWG eCrime 2025, supporting the annual symposium.
• KnowBe4majorStrategic or Co-development PartnerKnowBe4 is a Bronze Sponsor / Member of APWG eCrime 2025, contributing to APWG's anti-phishing and security awareness programs.
• CAIDA (Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis)majorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCAIDA at UC San Diego is a collaborator on APWG programs. CAIDA researchers co-moderate the APWG Policy Roundtable on Measurement, Transparency, and Cyber Integrity Policy at eCrime 2025, contributing expertise in research-driven Internet measurement.
• San Diego Supercomputer CenterminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerListed as a sponsor/collaborator of APWG eCrime 2025, contributing research infrastructure and data analysis capabilities to the counter-cybercrime community.
• SpamhausmajorTechnology or IntegrationSpamhaus contributes to APWG eCX data processing and training sessions. Sven Krohlas from Spamhaus leads training sessions at eCrime 2026 on investigating phishing campaigns through domain clustering. Spamhaus processes APWG eCX data among other detections.
• M3AAWG (Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group)majorStrategic or Co-development PartnerAPWG supports M3AAWG events, an industry association with over 200 members worldwide that brings together ISPs, telecom companies, Email Service Providers, social networking companies, hardware and software vendors, major brands, antivirus vendors and security vendors to develop cooperative approaches for fighting online abuse.
• ICANNmajorTechnology or IntegrationICANN contributes to APWG research through its security research team (Samaneh Tajalizadehkhoob and colleagues), presenting research on malicious domain registration patterns at eCrime conferences. ICANN's domain registry data supports APWG's cybercrime measurement.
• Arizona State University (ASU) ResearchersmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerASU researchers conducted the PhishFarm study published at IEEE S&P 2019, which validated that eCX reports generate the highest level of crawler traffic of any entity, confirming eCX's unique position among cybercrime data sources.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves10 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Market position

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/apwg
• Facebookfacebook.com/antiphishing
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/apwg

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles7 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about APWG