Fergie's Tech Blog

Phishers Land Bigger Fish and Banks Pay Up -- But for How Long?

Mary Kirwan writes on The Globe and Mail:

The latest security surveys show that attackers are indeed getting smarter, and concentrating their efforts on softer, high-yield targets, predominantly home users and financial institutions — namely consumers banking online.

Despite huge publicity around the issues, U.S. consumers are still taking the bait in droves. According to research firm, Gartner Inc., in 2006, as many as 3.5 million Americans will provide confidential data to phishers, and their naiveté will cost the U.S. economy an estimated $2.8-billion (U.S.). Individual losses are also increasing exponentially. U.S. victims lost five times more in 2006 to individual phishing attacks than in 2005. Clearly attackers want to maximize the return from these more targeted attacks.

posted by Fergie @ 11/16/2006 04:13:00 PM