Phishing Attacks Taking Hefty Toll on Consumers’ Money

A new research on online financial fraud by McAfee Avert Labs suggests that consumers are suffering an average loss of £500 per annum due to phishing attacks. There has been a 185% rise in Internet banking frauds during January-June 2009 over 2008.

Moreover, the research suggests that 80% of all e-mails from banks represent bogus messages, adding that a lot of users do not think twice before submitting personal information. Commonly, English and American brands are spoofed in such e-mails, while RSA notes that a huge 72% of the assaults target American banks.

McAfee security researchers explain that e-mails appearing as messages from a reputed firm, which are actually spurious, direct users to access their accounts and enter their banking password, credit card or Social Security numbers.

McAfee researchers feel perturbed about the fake electronic mails that contain malicious attachments infected with computer viruses. Francois Paget, author of the report and senior engineer for malware research at France-based McAfee Avert Labs, disclosed that even though nine years had passed since the 'I love you' PC virus emerged, a lot of Internet users continued to be vulnerable, as reported by SCMagazine on August 17, 2009.

Meanwhile, Symantec reports that phishing attacks during July 2009 increased 52%, while spam levels remained more or less the same since June 2009.

The security specialists state that a number of phishers misappropriated legal Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates to make their bogus websites appear legitimate by presenting well-known SSL padlock symbol that made users feel artificially secured.

Hence, the specialists advise for caution to everyone who uses the Net. Users should give second thoughts prior to viewing an e-mail or entering personal information and do not open an e-mail if it is from a stranger.

Furthermore, if consumers receive bank e-mails, then they must verify from their banks about the authenticity of those messages. Finally, for any e-mail that shows an URL link, users must not follow it rather type the address into their browser and then access the related site.

Related article: Phishing With A Redirector Code

» SPAMfighter News - 9/4/2009