Phishing Losses Not So Big; Confidence Losses Are Another Story
from the them's-the-breaks dept
So for all the talk about how phishing scams are growing rapidly, a new study is saying that the monetary losses from phishing are much smaller than expected: approximately $137 million around the world this year. Instead, the study says the real problem is that awareness of all these phishing scams means that people have lost confidence in legitimate email communications. If that's really true, it might sound like a good thing, suggesting that people around the world were very quickly educated on the problem, and figured out a way to cope. The details, however, suggest that isn't true. Many people fell victim to phishing scams, but it appears the scammers brought in so much info, so fast, that they only mined a small portion of it. That is, if you got caught in a phishing scam, you may have been lucky (for now) and the scammers didn't use your info. Still, it's questionable how accurate those numbers are. Other studies have claimed much higher numbers in losses. Either way, the rate at which phishing occurs has clearly been increasing, as had the sophistication of the scams. As with other scams and attacks, it's clear that phishing is going to be with us for a long, long time.
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Phishing
Let's have some positive stories about phishers getting caught!
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Re: Phishing
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Phishing & Spam
Of course, the same people who are clueless enough to respond to spam may also be the ones who get phished and may also not hear about what to do about either....
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Re: Phishing & Spam
Agreed. A wise man once said that a fool and his money were lucky to ever get together in the first place.
- Freed
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