Some 57 million US Internet users have received e-mails attempting to lure them to fake Web sites in an effort to obtain bank or credit card information, a survey showed on Thursday.
The survey by Gartner Inc on the scheme known as "phishing" also estimated that this type of fraud cost US banks and credit card issuers about US$1.2 billion dollars last year.
The scheme uses e-mails designed to look as if they come from a bank or financial institution, and directs the recipient to a Web site where they are asked to "verify" data or credit-card numbers.
Gartner analysts said that based on the survey, some 30 million adult Internet users are almost certain to have received one of these pitches and another 27 million may have received them.
These schemes have a higher success rate than many other fraud attempts, according to the Gartner survey completed last month.
Gartner estimates that about 19 percent of those receiving the phishing e-mails, or nearly 11 million US adults users, have clicked on the link in a phishing e-mail. And some 3 percent, or an estimated 1.78 million adults, report giving phishers their financial or personal information.
"Phishing attack victims are almost three times as prone to identity-theft related fraud as other online consumers," said Avivah Litan, vice president and research director at Gartner.
"Anyway you look at it, the crooks are achieving their goals with the execution of phishing attacks. Service providers have no choice but to combat these fraudulent e-mails if networked computing is to become more trusted as a favored channel for customer transactions," Litan said.
Phishing attacks are not new, but they have become more pervasive in the past 12 months. According to the survey, 76 percent of the known or suspected phishing scams have occurred since last October, and another 16 percent occurred during the six months before then.
"Financial institutions, Internet service providers, and other service providers must take phishing seriously," Litan said.
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