30 million Americans fall for phishing scams

Around 92 million people in the US are thought to have received a phishing email over the past year - and a staggering 30 million have fallen for such a scam, according to a survey to be published by Gartner on Thursday.

Phishing is an internet scam in which unsuspecting users receive official-looking emails that attempt to fool them into disclosing online passwords, user names and other personal information. Victims are usually persuaded to click on a link in an email that directs them to a doctored version of an organisation's website - such as a fake bank website.

Gartner said the survey indicates that more than 30 million people are sure they have been suckered in by a phishing email and of those a worrying two million went on to divulge sensitive information such as credit card numbers.

Unless phishing can be stamped out using digitally signed emails, and other anti-phishing technologies, Gartner expects the US ecommerce economy to take a substantial hit.

Avivah Litan from Gartner Research said: "Without the implementation of phishing antidotes, consumer trust will further erode and annual US ecommerce growth will slow to 10 per cent or less by 2007."

The Gartner survey was carried out during April and questioned more than 5,000 US internet users and the answers were extrapolated to create a representative sample of the US population.

Munir Kotadia writes for ZDNet UK