Nearly half of people in the UK (46 per cent) do not know what a phishing email is, new research by online payment provider PayPal reveals. With just over half of women (54 per cent) claiming to know the term means, compared to three quarters of men over all who understand what a phishing email is (74 per cent), PayPal is calling for more consumer education to be done.

The research, into the UKs knowledge and awareness of phishing scams also revealed that people in the UK are so confused by phishing that just 4 in 10 people (42 per cent) 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 fraudulent been taken from their account. When it comes to solving the problem of phishing emails, 64 per cent of people believe that better education for people who shop online will solve the problem, whilst 39 per cent 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, six in ten people (60 per cent or 27.4 million) say they have received a phishing email at some point, with 66 per cent of these people (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 per cent of these people just deleted the email straight away, a quarter (25 per cent) forwarded it to their bank, whilst just 5 per cent forwarded the email on to an anti-phishing internet site to be dealt with. The good news is that just 2 per cent of people say they were fooled into responding to a phishing email.

It is not just your credit card at risk: PayPals research into the UKs awareness and knowledge of phishing scams also revealed that 22 per cent of people are still unsure about how important banking login details are to a phishing scammer. Bank login details are just as useful to a phisher as a persons personal credit card details, as it gives the phisher access to your online account.
A PayPal spokesperson said: Our research reveals that the real problem surrounding phishing is slightly different to the perception of it. Most people (98 per cent) can spot a phishing email and know not to respond to it. However, the high proportion of people who arent confident enough to explain this to their friends or neighbours would suggest there is room for error and further education is undoubtedly at the heart of the solution.

The research was conducted by YouGov amongst a representative sample of adults between 1st 4th June 2007. Total population figure: 45,731,000.

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www.paypal.com

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