Phishing Scams Increase

[jeffrey]

The number of fraudulent email 'phishing' scams is on the rise according to separate reports by research house Gartner Inc and anti spam vendor Brightmail Inc, with Gartner estimating such scams cost US banks and credit card issuers $1.2bn in 2003.

Gartner believes that 57 million Americans have received phishing emails, which are designed to solicit personal information such as bank account numbers and passwords from email users.

According to a Gartner survey 30 million adult US Internet users have experienced a phishing attack, with a further 27 million believing that they have observed what may have been a phishing scam. About 19% of those attacked have clicked on a phishing link, and while only 3% report giving over financial or personal information, that still amounts to 1.78 million people... [read more at cbronline.com]

To learn about more Internet scams that you want to avoid, read the SavingAdvice.com article Don't get Scammed!