Just one per cent of online bankers in the US and Europe are tricked into visiting phishing sites but once there, over half of these end up handing over their login details, according to research from e-security firm Trusteer.
Based on a sample of the three million users of the vendor's browser security service, who are customers of 10 US and European banks, the research shows 1.04% of bank customers click on malicious links and are redirected to a phishing Web site.
Around half of these - 0.47% of total customers - divulge their login credentials and other personal information on phishing sites.
The vendor claims that if this information was abused, the losses associated with these hijacked credentials would range between $2.4 million and $9.4 million annually, per one million online clients.
Amit Klein, CTO, Trusteer, says: "While the fact that nearly half of the victims were tricked into giving up their online banking credentials was surprising, the aggregate value of the financial losses created by only half of one percent of a bank's customers is staggering."