Half of Americans Clueless About Online Threats

A May 2007 survey sponsored by Microsoft, which included 2,482 American adults, revealed that 17 percent of U.S. adults have fallen victim to an Internet scam. Worse yet, 81 percent of the victims admitted that they were at fault by opening e-mails or sending information to companies that seemed legitimate just because they had professional logos or recognizable names. The biggest culprit appears to be lack of knowledge of the threats. The survey found that 58 percent of the adults polled weren't even aware of online threats and scams, and of those that were aware, many had little knowledge about online threats.
This reminds me of a Dateline I just watched that mentioned two different public officials that lost money responding to 419 scams. A town treasurer in Wisconsin lost $18,000 and a county treasurer in Michigan was scammed out of $180,000 of taxpayer money.
These scams are very old cons, around long before the internet and were the subject of one of my early blog posts months ago.
No good ever comes from responding to unsolicited email offers.

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