Tip #4505 - Phishing in 2007
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Q:
I know this is kind of an odd question, but do you have any statistics
on the phishing attacks that hit in the year 2007? I was just wondering
how everything ended up with them. Thanks for any information you
may have!
A:
That's actually a great question and I'm sure
you're not the only one out there who has been wondering the same
thing. As a matter of fact, I saw some interesting information about
phishing attacks awhile back, but I didn't know if you all would be
interested in it or not, so I passed it by. But when I saw this question
in my e-mail the other day, I figured there were at least a few of
you who wanted to know about it, so this one's for you!
So, I guess we
might as well get right into it. According to a survey conducted by
Gartner market researchers, 3.6 million U.S. citizens were victims
of various phishing attacks in the year 2007. Wow, 3.6 million! Can
you even imagine? Plus, in the mix of all that, 3.2 billion U.S. dollars
were lost as well. That's extremely higher than last year's statistics,
which amounted to a loss of 2.3 billion dollars. And as you can probably
tell, it's only going to get worse from here on out.
Now, there is
one positive note in all of this. In 2007, the average loss per individual
person was lowered to $886 from $1,244 in 2006. While that's good
news, in the whole scheme of things, the overall damage increased
because so many more U.S. citizens gave in to the phishing attacks.
The survey also said that most of the phishing attacks came in disguise
under the eBay and PayPal names. Of course, there are several others
looming around the Web today, but those two seemed to be the most
popular last year.
The Gartner company
went on to explain that most phishers go for debit card numbers and
bank account information first. They said the security measures for
that kind of data are a lot less strict than credit card information.
And since a lot of people give out that information for their eBay
and PayPal accounts, there's no easier way for phishers to get ahold
of our personal information.
Gartner said they
believe the same kind of phishing attacks will continue to increase
until at least 2009. They may even go beyond that unless e-mail providers
start to take firmer action against malware. All in all, I know this
information is a little scary, but if you continue to use common sense
when you're going through your e-mail or when you're signing up for
a new online service, you will be just fine. As always, just be cautious
of the e-mails you're opening and if something looks suspicious, just
delete it. If you use certain Web sites like eBay and PayPal, just
make sure you're logging in under a secure connection. If you pay
close attention to everything you do online, you will be as safe as
you can be.
Plus, if you're
not part of that 3.6 million statistic yet, you must be doing something
right!
~ Erin
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