Gone Phishing

A new study conducted by two professors at Indiana University concludes that more individuals fall victim to phishing scams each year than previously thought.   Markus Jacobbson and Jacob Ratkiewicz found through their study that phishing fraudsters may be experiencing up to 14 percent response rate on their scams.  This number is significantly higher than the 3 percent response rate reported by the Gartner Group.   

This is particularly relevant within our marketplace because of the sheer volume of eBay-related phishing scams. Recently, ReliaBlog covered the story of the newest eBay phishing scam that plays upon the fear of identity theft by suggesting to receipients that it it believed their account has been hacked. This same tactic is now being used by scam artists trying to gather PayPal information from users. The phishing email that victims receive states that an additional email address has been added to their PayPal account and provides them with a link to follow if they want to dispute this email address addition. So as always—beware of fraudsters!

For more information on the IU study or to read the study, please visit http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/markus/papers/ethical_phishing-jakobsson_ratkiewicz_06.pdf.