US phishing nets 57 mn in 2003

E-mails designed to steal credit card details, home addresses and telephone numbers, known as ‘‘phishing attacks,’’ affe...

E-mails designed to steal credit card details, home addresses and telephone numbers, known as ‘‘phishing attacks,’’ affected 57 million Americans in the past one year, research firm Gartner said today.

Half of these people responded to the attacks, resulting in the theft of identity in some form or another, Gartner said.

‘‘Consumers have reason to be nervous. Phishing attacks undermine their confidence in the authenticity of e-mail originators, threatening consumer trust in the very foundation of Internet-based communications,’’ Gartner said.

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Based on the sample surveyed, Gartner believes that nearly 11 million online adults — representing about 19 percent of those attacked — have visited phishing e-mail attack links. ‘‘Even more seriously, 1.78 million Americans, or 3 per cent of those attacked, remember giving the phishers sensitive financial or personal information, such as credit card numbers or billing addresses, by filling in a form on a spoof web site.’’

Gartner believes that at least a million more individuals may have fallen for such schemes without realizing it. Direct losses from identity theft fraud against phishing attack victims — including new-account, checking account and credit card account fraud — cost US banks and credit card issuers about $1.2 billion last year.

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