UK Consumers Lose Faith in ‘Phished’ Brands

It seems Phishing is have effects in ways that weren’t originally obvious, it comes back to the same topic we generally discuss here when it comes to security and consumers.

IGNORANCE.

Someone consumers see a Phishing attempt from ‘Brand X‘ as a negative against that brand…even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the brand and there’s nothing they can do to control it.

Email phishing attacks tarnish the reputations of targeted firms, according to a new UK survey. Two in five UK adults (42 per cent) quizzed feel that their trust in a brand would be “greatly reduced” if they received a phishing email purporting to represent it.

Despite this, the majority of respondents to YouGov’s online survey reckon the responsibility for protection against phishing attacks lies with ISPs and individuals themselves, rather than the brands targeted by fraudulent emails.

One in four (26 per cent) of 1,960 adults surveyed reckon the main responsibility for protecting against phishing attacks lies with themselves, with a similar percentage (23 per cent) responding that their ISP ought to bear the brunt of filtering spam emails. A further (17 per cent) think the sender’s ISP and email service provider holds the greatest responsibility in combating scam emails.

Pretty sad news for any big brands, and how did people work out it’s the ISP’s responsibility? If you are careful with your e-mail address and responsible about using it (or at least maintain segregated and throw-away accounts) you shouldn’t have any problems anyway.

Plus believing Phishing e-mails? Sometimes I lose faith in the human race.

The YouGov phishing survey was sponsored by anti-spam firm Cloudmark, which reports that .uk domains are the single most common target of phishing attack across Europe.

Security experts at ISPs said it was unfair for consumers to hold the targets of attacks responsible for the crud hitting their inboxes.

“Whilst awareness to the problem is essential, it is unrealistic to expect businesses to be able to secure themselves fully against such sophisticated criminal activities. The increasingly dynamic and transient nature of the latest threats requires a combination of desktop protection at the client level, and accurate message filtering from ISPs,” said Nigel Stevens, product director at THUS.

Oh well I guess we just have to keep educating, talking, discussing and teaching. There’s nothing much else we can do to combat misconceptions and public opinion.

Source: The Register