Microsoft sayslottery
scamsare the fastest growing area ofcybercrime.
Microsoft commissioned a survey of 3,600 internet users across
Germany, Italy, Denmark, the UK and The Netherlands, and found that
50% of
spam e-mails sent are lottery scams.
In the UK, 20% who received lottery spam opened some messages,
with 10% having replied to them. In addition, 13% have clicked on
potentially malicious links inside these e-mails.
The survey found that 3% of UK respondents had lost money
through such lottery scams over the past 12 months, which is the
same as the pan-European average.
Ed Gibson, Microsoft UK chief security advisor, said, "Internet
lottery scams are one of the fastest growing areas of cybercrime.
The scams are of increasing concern to international law
enforcement, offering criminals a low-risk opportunity to steal
money from internet users."