How big is the problem of online fraud or account hijacking?
The problem is big and getting bigger. Sections of the media and some industry analysts have cited alarmingly high online fraud estimates, but these have to be treated with caution; the tendency is to group all online fraud together and then quote that number when talking about any of the specific sub-areas of fraud, such as phishing. What is clear is that the problem is growing, both in scale and complexity. For example, phishing was almost unheard of at the end of 2003. Five years on there can hardly be an email user on the planet who does not receive frequent phishing emails, and the number of different phishing scams reported per month has risen to more than 30,000 (source: Anti-Phishing Working Group, Q1 2008). Financial institutions are at risk from direct financial losses and perhaps more seriously from indirect losses associated with damage to brand reputation and customer attrition from online services.
