Bank Phishing Attacks Snare Few Victims But Tally Major Damage

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Bank Phishing Attacks Snare Few Victims But Tally Major Damage

Live phishing attack data on major banks shows just a small percentage of victims translates into big profits for bad guys and big losses for bank customers Dec 04, 2009 | 11:00 AM

By Kelly Jackson Higgins

DarkReading If you've ever wondered just how lucrative a phishing campaign against your bank can really be, then consider this: Phishers actually land a tiny percentage of victims, but the end result is big bucks -- to the tune of $2.4 million to $9.4 million a year, according to a new study that measured real phishing attacks on banks.

Trusteer, which gathers phishing intelligence via its Rapport browser security plug-in, found only 0.47 percent of a bank's customers fall prey to phishing attacks each year, but the bad guys typically make about $2,000 on each customer's account they compromise. The company collected data during a three-month period from 10 large banks in the U.S. and Europe, and then for the report (PDF) normalized the data per 1 million user.

full story at darkreading - http://www.darkreading.com/security/vulnerabilities/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=222000597&subSection=Vulnerabilities+and+threats