80 percent of global consumers misidentify phishing e-mails

According to a research conducted by Intel Security, only 3% of respondents were able to identify every example correctly. Findings indicate that globally, the 35-44 year old age group performed best, answering an average of 68% of questions accurately. On average, women under the age of 18 and over the age of 55 appeared to have the most difficulty differentiating between legitimate and phony e-mails, identifying six out of 10 messages correctly. On the whole, men gave slightly more correct answers than women, averaging a 67% accuracy rate versus a 63% rate for women.

Of the 144 countries represented in the survey, the US ranked 27 overall in ability to detect phishing, with 68% accuracy. The five best performing countries were France, Sweden, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Spain. Within the US, the state with the most correct responses was Iowa, with an average of 68% questions answered correctly. North Dakota provided the fewest correct answers, averaging 56%. New Yorkers and Californians answered 66.44% and 65.73% of the questions correct respectively, below the national average.

Cyber-criminals use phishing e-mails to get consumers to click on links to websites they have created solely for the purpose of information theft. They trick users into typing their names, addresses, login IDs, passwords, and/or credit card information into fields on websites that look like they belong to real companies. In some cases, just clicking the link provided in the e-mail will automatically download malware onto the user’s device. Once the malware is installed, hackers can easily steal the victim’s information without their knowledge.