Phishing? Wot's that?

Nearly half of people in the UK (46%) don't know what a phishing email is, new research by secure online payment provider PayPal reveals.

The research, into the UK's knowledge and awareness of phishing scams also revealed that people in the UK are so confused by phishing that just 42% would actually be confident enough to explain what a phishing email is to someone else.

Phishing emails are bogus emails sent out widely to a host of email addresses asking the recipient for personal information, usually regarding their online credit card or bank accounts. If anyone responds to the email, they could find that money has fraudulently been taken from their account.

When it comes to solving the problem of phishing emails, 64% of people believe that better education for people who shop online will solve the problem, whilst 39% say personal signing and encryption of all emails will stop phishing emails arriving in their in box.

Despite nearly half of people in the UK not fully understanding what a phishing email is, 60% or 27.4 million, say they've received a phishing email at some point, with 66% (18.1 million) receiving an email that looked as though it had come from their bank asking for personal information regarding their account.

When these emails hit their in-box, 71% of these people just deleted the email straight away; 25% forwarded it to their bank, whilst just 5% forwarded the email on to an anti-phishing internet site to be dealt with. The good news is that only 2% of people say they were fooled into responding to a phishing email.

Michael Barrett, Chief Information Security Officer from PayPal, makes the obvious (for most) point by stating that if anyone is ever in doubt as to the authenticity of an email, and concerned it may be a phishing scam, they should never click on the link embedded in the email.

Instead open up a new browser and type out the link manually, this will let you know if the email is genuine or fake. If you do establish that an e-mail is a fake you can report it to PayPal's anti-phishing task force spoof@paypal.com, so they can look into it and track the sender with a view to getting their sites closed down.

In the meantime, the following tips could prove useful in spotting a phishing email:

1- Generic greetings. Many spoof emails begin with a general greeting, such as: "Dear PayPal member." If you do not see your first and last name, be suspicious and do not click on any links or button.

2- A fake sender's address. A spoof email may include a forged email address in the "From" field. This field is easily altered.

3- A false sense of urgency. Many spoof emails try to deceive you with the threat that your account is in jeopardy if you don't update it ASAP. They may also state that an unauthorised transaction has recently occurred on your account, or claim PayPal is updating its accounts and needs information fast.

21 June 2007 © Moneyextra.com

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