(4 December 2009 – Global) A study of three million users, from ten major US and European banks, has revealed that 50 percent of those who are scammed into clicking on phishing sites have there login details stolen.Of the sample of consumers, 1.04 percent were tricked into clicking on phishing site links and of this group 0.47 percent ended up divulging there login credentials and other personal information, according to research conducted by Trusteer, an e-security firm.
If the information obtained was used in criminal circles, the vendor claims, the attributed losses to the hijacked credentials could range from US$2.4 million (A$2.58 million) to US$9.4 million annually, per one million clients online.
Amit Klein, CTO, Trusteer, said that while the fact that nearly half of the victims were tricked into giving up their online banking credentials was surprising, the aggregate value of the financial losses created by only half of one percent of a bank’s customers is staggering.