With any luck, the latest news on the arrest of a group responsible for a phishing spam run against UK University students means that the number of such phishing attacks will diminish somewhat. According to the information in the linked to article, the scammers managed to steal from £1,000-£5,000 from each bank account they got access to – in the region of a thousand accounts.
Out of the total population of very roughly 2.5 million students, there have been in the region of a thousand victims – a response rate of very approximately 0.05%. Yet the scammers made quite a bit of money from this – or would have done if they had not been tracked down.
This shows that :-
- People can and do make enough money from such phishing attacks to maintain a rich lifestyle even when stealing from a small and not particularly wealthy population.
- Even the best educated and intelligent section of society can fall victim to a phishing attack.
- And you really don’t want to become a victim.