Phishing scammers cast a wide net, luring victims into a nasty snare that often costs them critical financial data. Preventing the scams may be harder than anyone has imagined.

Phishing scams use phony e-mail messages and fraudulent websites -- phishers like to pose as PayPal, a favorite tool of eBay customers, for example -- to dupe people into divulging personal financial data, especially credit card info.

According to a Gartner report published in mid-May, there have been 1.8 million reported scams in the United States. Over half resulted in the fraudulent use of credit cards or other financial data. More than 57 million Americans have received phishing e-mails, and phishing has accounted for $1.2 billion annually in credit card scams, according to the Gartner report.

By John Brandon at Wired.

[ Read more ]

Related items

• Review: Identity Theft (26 August 2003)