As Phishing and Similar CyberCrimes Increase, Are Victims Better at Threat Assessment?

A 59 percent increase in the scams of phishing, vishing, smishing, and pharming seems scary enough.

But the latest stats from the FBI Internet Crime Report, quantified here in tables provided by Security.org, show this scam category is not the threat with the largest increase: From 2015 to 2018, online investment scams went up 104 percent.

Personal data breaches are up 158 percent.

Online extortion is up 187 percent!

While some of those crimes, such as business email compromise (BEC), saw larger increases than phishing (BEC was up 160 percent), phishing still had more reported victims in 2018 at 26,379.

(The online crime with the most sufferers: nonpayment/nondelivery with 65,116 reported victims—and that's down 3 percent from 2015.)

But there's good news.

As part of the report, Security.org surveyed 933 people.

They were asked whether they knew what phishing scams are, and 96 percent of them said they do.

But people sometimes lie, so the survey went on to ask them to match phishing to the definition ("unsolicited email, text messages, and phone calls purportedly from a legitimate company requesting personal, financial, and/or login credentials")—and most of them got it right.

But a lot of people think phishing is an email-only thing.

Almost half didn't think phishing could happen via software fraud and malware.

Over one-fifth said it wouldn't happen via texts.

Sadly, those numbers increased with the age of the respondent.

OK, Boomer—you can get phished via web ads and social media.

Those same 933 people were further quizzed on their ability spot a phishing scam.

While the above numbers might make you think things are safer, only 5 percent of them answered all the questions correctly, and a full 12 percent of respondents got all the questions completely wrong.

60 percent of the questions were answered incorrectly across the board.

Simply knowing phishing exists doesn't make you an expert at spotting it.

They were better at spotting legitimate emails, however.

And, Gen Xers were a little better at it.

The report also gathered advice from the respondents who spelled out how they avoid getting phished in the first place—86 percent don't click anything from an anonymous sender, 80 percent ignore emails sent by people they don't know, and 74 percent make judicious use of the spam filter.

You'll find more advice to follow and more crime stats to scare you in the full report.

Also feel free to take Security.org's full Phishing Quiz at the end.

See how you compare to the other Boomers and Gen Xers.

A 59 percent increase in the scams of phishing, vishing, smishing, and pharming seems scary enough.

But the latest stats from the FBI Internet Crime Report, quantified here in tables provided by Security.org, show this scam category is not the threat with the largest increase: From 2015 to 2018, online investment scams went up 104 percent.

Personal data breaches are up 158 percent.

Online extortion is up 187 percent!

While some of those crimes, such as business email compromise (BEC), saw larger increases than phishing (BEC was up 160 percent), phishing still had more reported victims in 2018 at 26,379.

(The online crime with the most sufferers: nonpayment/nondelivery with 65,116 reported victims—and that's down 3 percent from 2015.)

But there's good news.

As part of the report, Security.org surveyed 933 people.

They were asked whether they knew what phishing scams are, and 96 percent of them said they do.

But people sometimes lie, so the survey went on to ask them to match phishing to the definition ("unsolicited email, text messages, and phone calls purportedly from a legitimate company requesting personal, financial, and/or login credentials")—and most of them got it right.

But a lot of people think phishing is an email-only thing.

Almost half didn't think phishing could happen via software fraud and malware.

Over one-fifth said it wouldn't happen via texts.

Sadly, those numbers increased with the age of the respondent.

OK, Boomer—you can get phished via web ads and social media.

Those same 933 people were further quizzed on their ability spot a phishing scam.

While the above numbers might make you think things are safer, only 5 percent of them answered all the questions correctly, and a full 12 percent of respondents got all the questions completely wrong.

60 percent of the questions were answered incorrectly across the board.

Simply knowing phishing exists doesn't make you an expert at spotting it.

They were better at spotting legitimate emails, however.

And, Gen Xers were a little better at it.

The report also gathered advice from the respondents who spelled out how they avoid getting phished in the first place—86 percent don't click anything from an anonymous sender, 80 percent ignore emails sent by people they don't know, and 74 percent make judicious use of the spam filter.

You'll find more advice to follow and more crime stats to scare you in the full report.

Also feel free to take Security.org's full Phishing Quiz at the end.

See how you compare to the other Boomers and Gen Xers.