Gone phishing or phishing going?

I wasn’t overly surprised when I read Jordan Robertson’s Associated Press piece, “Phishing' drops; are scammers switching tactics?” at Physorg.com simply because lately I’ve heard less complaints from PC users about phishing encounters. As it turns out, a recent IBM security report determined that only 0.1% of all spam is made up phishing exploits. While that seems like a tiny amount, IBM Internet Security Systems division’s X-Force research team director Kris Lamb says, “That is a huge, precipitous decline in the amount of phishing.” 

I agree with Lamb that security software is getting better at identifying and thwarting phishing sites, but I like to think that computer users as a whole have become more savvy and are better able to recognize phony web sites when they encounter them. Those in the know are less likely to just follow an emailed link to a site, and instead seek out and access sites themselves in an effort to get to legitimate ones.  When it comes to security, like the SYMS clothing store’s tagline, “An educated consumer is our best customer,” I like to say, “An educated user is our best defense.”