Gartner Survey On The Cost of Phishing Attacks

Although a few years old, a survey from Gartner shows the cost of phishing attacks. The threat to business and consumers is substantial.  Since the survey was completed, there has been no let up on the volume of social engineering attacks, including phishing.  As RSA pointed out earlier this year there was a 59 percent increase in phishing attacks from 2011 to 2012.  As such, the information provided by the Gartner study on phishing is still relevant.  Below are some of the key facts from the study.

• Phishing attacks costs businesses $3.2 billion in losses.
• 3.6 million adults lost money in phishing attacks
• 11 percent of online adults say they don’t use any security software
• Of consumers who received phishing e-mails, 3.3 percent say they lost money because of the attack
• The average dollar loss per incident was $886
• Of those consumers who lost money to phishing attacks, 47 percent said a debit or check card had been the payment method used