Internet Users in Singapore Fail to Recognize Phishing Scams

According to a recent survey by YouGov, a research firm based in London, while online adoption in Singapore is regarded as most advanced regionally, most Web-users there even now are not able to identify phishing scams.

The study discovered that 83% of Singaporean Web-users couldn't detect spelling mistakes on a website, a typical way of knowing whether a website is a phishing site or otherwise.

Meanwhile for the online survey, participants were simultaneously presented with the images of two websites from which they had to select the phishing site. While 83% of respondents couldn't spot the spelling mistakes, 51% forgot to check for a padlock sign in the address bar of the browser that is necessary to know whether data is encrypted while being transferred among the PC as well as website.

Moreover, 28% became easily convinced into sharing their account information when asked for it deceptively, while 25% couldn't realize that the URL address had a non-specific, numerical suffix.

The research further showed that respondents of 18-24 years of age had better chances of identifying phishing websites containing spelling mistakes compared to those of 35 years or more.

Nevertheless, the researchers found that respondents in Singapore still proved superior in the test compared to respondents in Britain and America. The poll revealed that around 88% of Web-surfers in UK and US couldn't recognize phishing sites that placed the countries on top of the online study list comprising eight participating nations.

Besides US and UK, 86% of Australian netizens are endangered with online scams for the same reason.
Remarking about the study, the researchers stated that even though online retailers, banks as well as also other institutions tried to spread online security awareness, cautioning consumers against sharing their private details online, a lot of users, as evident from the poll, continued to be conned.

Hence, advising users to be wary, communications manager at CIFAS, Richard Hurley, stated that undoubtedly cyber-criminals were becoming more deceitful, but consumers could mitigate the Internet fraud possibilities via increasing self-awareness of the ways for their own online defense, reported SCMAGAZINE on September 16, 2009.

Related article: Internet Threat Volumes Overwhelm Security Companies

» SPAMfighter News - 10/14/2009