iPhone users most vulnerable to phishing attacks, BlackBerry users the most resilient

In sad and lamentable news, it turns out that mobile users are three times more likely than desktop users to give up their personal details to phishing websites. Even worse, despite only making up 26% of the US smartphone market, 65% of successful attacks are on iPhone users. Android, with 24% of the market represents only 9% of phishing attacks -- but BlackBerry comes on top, with 36% of the market and only 8% of all successful phishing attempts.

These shocking findings come from Internet security company Trusteer, which parsed server logs from phishing websites to see which mobile browser user agent strings popped up the most -- and as you can see from damning pie chart on the right, iPhone users are atop the steaming heap.

Usually when such figures emerge, iPhone users are quick to point out that they use the Internet more, thus skewing the statistics -- but we're talking email access, not actual Internet usage. The explanation is more likely due to differences in how the various smartphone platforms present your email; BlackBerry users, for example, have to click through a warning message when opening a link in an email.

The other option, of course, is that BlackBerry and Android users are simply more savvy when it comes to phishing attempts: BlackBerry still rules supreme in enterprise, an arena where IT administrators regularly warn users about such attacks -- but Android's low phishing percentage is harder to explain. It may just be due to a higher geek:noob ratio among its user base.

iPhone users most vulnerable to phishing attacks, BlackBerry users the most resilient originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 11:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/01/07/iphone-users-most-vulnerable-to-phishing-attacks-blackberry-use/

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