A new study by research firm Gartner Inc. found that the number of online scams known as "phishing attacks" have spiked in the last year and that online consumers are frequently tricked into divulging sensitive information to criminals.
The study, which ended in April, 2004, surveyed 5,000 adult Internet users and found that around 3 percent of those surveyed reported giving up personal financial or personal information after being drawn into a phishing scam, which use e-mail messages and Web pages designed to look like correspondence from legitimate online businesses.
The results suggest that as many as 30 million adults have experienced a phishing attack and that 1.78 million adults could have fallen victim to the scams, Gartner said.
Phishing attacks typically begin with e-mail messages purporting to come from established companies such as eBay Inc., Best Buy Co. Inc., Citigroup Inc. and others. Web page links within the e-mail messages direct recipients to Web sites disguised as official company Web pages where the recipient is asked to enter personal information such as their social security number, account number, password or credit card information.
The U.S. federal authorities and leading Internet service providers (ISPs) such as America Online Inc. (AOL), EarthLink Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have taken a more aggressive stance on the scams.
In March the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) moved to stop a phishing scam that had tricked hundreds of Internet users into giving credit card and bank account numbers to Web sites that looked like those of AOL and PayPal, part of eBay. The FTC charged Zachary Keith Hill of Houston with deceptive and unfair practices in that case, and the DOJ named Hill as a defendant in a criminal case it filed in Virginia. (See: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/03/phishinghilljoint.htm.)
Long a nuisance, phishing scams have exploded in the past year, Gartner said. The survey results suggest that 76 percent of all known or suspected phishing attacks occurred in the last six months, and 92 percent of known attacks happened in the 12 months preceding the study.
A success rate of 3 percent is plenty to encourage further attacks, Gartner said.
ISPs need to address the phishing problem to prevent the Internet and e-mail from being discredited as a medium for customer transactions, Gartner said.
Correction:
In this story, the date when the Gartner survey on phishing was completed was originally incorrect.
Get the independent advice and expertise you need to support a virtual workforce.
The increase in Linux popularity has increased the frequency and sophistication of malware attacks. Read this 2 page white paper now to learn how you can protect your Linux environment with real-time protection that is certified by all major Linux vendors.
Download now »
Ensuring acceptable application delivery will become even more difficult over the next few years. As a result, IT organizations need to ensure that the approach that they take to resolving the current application delivery challenges can scale to support the emerging challenges. This handbook elaborates on the key tasks associated with planning, optimization, management and control and provides decision criteria to help IT organizations choose appropriate solutions.
Download now »
A common misconception is that mid-range storage requirements are dramatically different than that of a larger enterprise. Mid-range storage users may require less capacity, but they have similar functionality and management requirements. This ESG paper examines mid-range storage needs and reviews a new solution that adjusts size while retaining value, performance and functionality.
Download now »
Sign up to receive Security Resource Alerts
This white paper provides guidance on how to develop a strategic approach to managing and monitoring logs, a key function required for compliance with many regulatory mandates and a critical defense against security threats.
Download now! »
Learn about the processes and technologies that support security information management (SIM) operations, as well as the business case for SIM. The series examines different options for implementing SIM and gives you evaluation criteria for selecting the best option for your organization.
Download now! »
Learn the strategies, actions, and capabilities that Best-in-Class organizations employ and technologies they choose to obtain superior performance against various security performance metrics. This report provides guidelines for identifying which security solutions to consume as a MSS and defines best practices for choosing and managing MSSPs.
Download now! »
Recommend This
