A new study confirms that users of the popular eBay auction site and the online payment company PayPal remain the most popular targets of phishing schemes.
More than three quarters of all phishing e-mails are targeted to the users of eBay and its PayPal subsidiary, according to the report.
The fraudulent e-mails most often attempt to gather personal information including credit card numbers and passwords in the name of ripping off users, said researchers at security software maker Sophos, which has its U.S. headquarters in Lynnfield, Mass.
Of those e-mails, 54.3 percent attempted to steal information from users of PayPal, and 20.9 percent were sent to users of the eBay auction site, the study found.
Despite attempts by companies such as eBay to stop phishers, including the company's browser-based toolbar that promises to help customers identify fraudulent Web pages, the criminals continue to succeed with increasingly realistic-looking e-mail messages and Web sites that closely resemble legitimate eBay and PayPal messages, Ron O'Brien, a Sophos senior security analyst, said.
Click here to read more about PayPal's latest effort to stop phishers.
In most cases, phishers use e-mails that offer links to fraudulent sites that in turn seek to deliver worm or Trojan viruses in the name of breaking into computers and gathering up as much personal information as possible.
