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London, 26 November 2007 - Cloudmark Inc., the global leader in carrier-grade messaging security, today announced the results of a survey conducted on its behalf by YouGov, which revealed that public confidence in consumer brands is dramatically affected by phishing attacks, with 42% of people surveyed feeling that their trust in a brand would be greatly reduced if they received a phishing email claiming to be from that company. The survey also showed that the majority of consumers feel that the responsibility for protection against phishing attacks lies with themselves, their service provider and the service provider that transported the phishing emails.

The survey revealed that:

• 42% of respondents surveyed feel that the trust in a brand would be greatly reduced if they received a phishing email claiming to be sent by that brand.
• 41% of those surveyed felt that their trust in a bank would be greatly reduced if they received a phishing email claiming to be from that company, compared to 40% who felt the same for an ISP, 36% for an online shopping site and 33% for a social networking site.
• 26% of those surveyed feel that they are the party most responsible for protecting themselves from phishing attacks, with 23% believing their Internet Service Provider (ISP) or email service provider is the most responsible and 17% thinking that the sender’s ISP and email service provider holds the greatest responsibility.

“Phishing is a highly sophisticated and well orchestrated form of crime. The gangs behind these attacks work to compromise financial information via e-mail scams and then propagate that information into a highly stratified and efficient economy, selling the data on to those who will profit from the accounts,” commented Neil Cook, UK technology chief at Cloudmark. “Earlier this year we conducted research into the effect that phishing has on the individual that found consumers were still extremely concerned about falling victim to such a scam. What is interesting to note from these results is that well-known brands are also suffering, with phishing attacks having a detrimental effect on their reputation. This knock-on effect will be particularly worrying for the banks, who rely on a high degree of trust with their customers.”

In addition to the YouGov survey, Cloudmark’s own research team today released results showing that Natwest Bank was the most phished brand in the UK during October 2007. The research was collected using Cloudmark’s user base, which consists of 260 million mailboxes. Cloudmark’s research also indicates that across Europe, the majority of unique phishing websites are created using the top level domain associated with the United Kingdom, .uk.

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About £3 billion of investment could be being thrown away by British small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on sites that have little search engine presence.

This is according to a new study conducted by Microsoft’s adCenter unit, which suggested that not enough time and money is being devoted to effective search marketing strategies, leading to little visibility for SMEs’ websites.

Although more than three-quarters of SMEs have experienced a surge in sales as a direct resulting of making sure their sites show up in search results, 44 per cent of respondents said they found search marketing too time consuming.

A further 56 per cent said they thought it was too expensive a process, while 33 per cent cited complexity as an off-putting factor.

‘UK SMEs are missing a trick by not investing in search marketing campaigns,’ commented Nigel Leggatt, Microsoft adCenter’s marketing manager, according to vnunet.com.

‘In today’s world, just having a website is not enough.’

The Search Marketing Expo is set to take place in London on November 15th and 16th to advise marketers on how to improve their campaigns and boost site visitor numbers as a result.

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Many businesses are less prepared than they think when it comes to using Web 2.0 technologies, a new survey has suggested.

While almost 97 per cent of companies polled by Forrester Research for Secure Computing said they believed themselves to be ready for internet threats, more than two-thirds admitted to needing to do more.

And when asked how regularly they fall foul of malware attacks, 79 per cent of respondents said they did so frequently.

‘The need to keep inappropriate content at bay, reduce non-business bandwidth consumption and limit exposure to internet threats gave rise to the industry of web filtering,’ the report stated.

It added: ‘The need for more effective web protection has never been greater.’

Earlier this week, Antti Ohrling, founder of mobile firm Blyk, told the MediaGuardian Changing Advertising Summit that experts were wrong to assume that Web 2.0 could enjoy the same level of success on mobile phones as it has done on the traditional internet, the Guardian reports.

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A number of businesses are failing to adequately prepare for periods of email downtime, according to new research.

The survey, conducted by Osterman Research for technology firm Neverfail, found that over half of respondents only know they are experiencing email problems when users report issues with sending or receiving messages.

A further 40 per cent of firms said they stand to lose as much as $50,000 (£24,622) for every instance of email downtime, equivalent to almost $1 million a year for each business.

‘The emergence of email as the dominant communications platform signalled a paradigm shift in the way business is conducted, yet companies have been slow to recognise that email should have 24/7 availability,’ commented Andrew Barnes, senior vice president of corporate development at Neverfail.

Earlier this year, research from email continuity solution provider Teneros found that 96 per cent of firms see a significant drop in staff productivity during an email outage.

Read the full report.

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