Fraudulent e-mails
Date: August 17, 2007Source: insidebayarea.com
THE term is phishing, and though it has nothing to do with a boat or finned creatures swimming in water, phishers are reeling in thousands of unsuspecting computer operators each year.
According to a report from Consumer Reports magazine, U.S. consumers lost about $7 billion over the past two years due to online phishing scams and spyware. One out of every four U.S. households with regular Internet users became the victim of cybercrime over that same period of time.
Phishing attacks — where cybercriminals send
e-mails that appear to come from banks, or employers or known merchants and ask recipients to update their personal information on what are actually bogus Web sites — now stand at 23,000 a month in the United States. The survey showed 8 percent of those polled said they provided personal information to scammers using fraudulent e-mail.
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