The Yearly Cost of Worldwide Phishing

Did you know that in 2009, credit card fraud cost over $400,000,000 to the global economy? That is a huge amount of money - and amazingly, most of it could have been avoided if people had only taken a few simple steps to stop their credit card details from slipping in to the wrong hands.

In addition to this amount, the cost of phishing is almost too difficult to calculate, as it is made up of a number of different things, such as the cost of identity theft, downgraded credit scores, and so on.

Reliable estimates have put the combined cost of credit card fraud and phishing at over one billion dollars per year - and that is being conservative.

The Personal Cost of Phishing

One billion dollars is a lot of money, and it unfortunately makes fraud and phishing a very attractive industry to people who are looking to make money the illegal way.

As you might imagine, the personal cost of phishing can be particularly high, especially if you already have one of the following sets of circumstances:

• Neutral credit history (i.e. not good and not bad)
• High amounts of cash in your bank accounts.
• A majority of your shopping done online.

If you look at the average consumer out there in the marketplace today, it is highly likely that they will fit in to at least one of these criteria points above - if not more.

Hence, even one mistake where you think a phishing email is from a trustworthy company could prove to be fatal when it comes to your financial reputation and future.

How to Protect Yourself from Phishing?

People who launch phishing attacks are clever, educated computer users. They think very logically - but there is one ultimate failure on their part. One of the key assumptions when it comes to phishing is that you will NOT think logically. That is, you will take everything on face value, and never question anything which might seem suspicious.

What this means is that if you do ensure that every action you take on the internet is thought out prior to being commenced, you have a high likelihood of busting the phishers plan - and therefore a good chance to catching them in the act.

Simple internet security steps are really all that is required to keep yourself, and your reputation and future safe.