Phishing Scams Cost Consumers Billions

"What shocks me is that among the people who responded to our survey, about 8 percent said they actually provided personal information to a fraudulent e-mail," said Jeff Fox, the main author of the report and technology editor of Consumer Reports. "That means millions and millions of people are taken in by these phishing scams."

U.S. consumers lost about $7 billion over the past two years from online phishing scams, spyware and throwing out computers so infected by viruses they were deemed useless, according to a report by Consumer Reports magazine.

One of every four U.S. households with regular Internet users became the victim of cybercrime over the two years ending in May, according to the research done by the Consumers Reports' National Research Center. It surveyed about 2,000 people among the 80 million U.S. households with Internet connections.

Viruses that infect PC hard drives or software programs and render them useless continue to be such a problem that 1.8 million U.S. consumers chose to replace their personal computers in the past two years, citing infections as the reason, the report said. That includes 850,000 in the six months ending in May.

Phishing attacks -- in which cybercriminals send e-mails that appear to come from banks or employers or known merchants and direct recipients to update their personal information on what are bogus Web sites -- have climbed to 23,000 a month in the United States, the report said.

"What shocks me is that among the people who responded to our survey, about 8 percent said they actually provided personal information to a fraudulent e-mail," said Jeff Fox, the main author of the report and technology editor of Consumer Reports. "That means millions and millions of people are taken in by these phishing scams."

He recommended that people never follow an e-mail link to a purported bank or financial institution. The Consumer Reports article recommends activating firewalls that come in most operating systems and spam blockers available from most Internet service providers.

It also recommends turning off computers overnight. It recommended installing, and regularly updating, antivirus and antispyware software, ranking a security Relevant Products/Services suite from Trend Micro Inc. as the most useful and two from McAfee Inc. as also effective.