Gartner is a well recognised research company. They’ve recently added up the numbers and come up with 3.6 million adults that lost money in 2007 due to phishing scams. In 2006 the figure was 2.3 million.
That’s a lot of people being conned and losing money online. According to this report it adds up to US$3.2 billion in USA alone.
Some tips you might find useful to avoid being of of these 3.6 million people:
- Never hand over personal details to people or web sites, unless you’re 100% certain of who you’re handing the details to.
- Pay attention to web addresses you click on. Read our article on this here.
- If you didn’t ask your bank or other service provider to send you an email then treat it as suspicious.
- Scammers always take advantage of popular events to send phishing emails. E.g., it’s now Easter so expect lots of Easter related scam emails.
- Be skeptical of what you read online. Chances are you didn’t really win a lottery in Spain without even buying a ticket.
- Use a good antivirus package that includes a web site scanner. The newer packages filter out fraudulent pages.