According to an article I just read on HeiseSecurity.co.uk, PhishTank has been used by another group to test phish blocking effectiveness in anti-phishing browser toolbars. This time it was Pittsburg, PA, USA’s Carnegie Mellon University doing the testing. If you’re interested, read the full PDF report here.

The phish fighters at Indiana University’s School of Informatics today released the findings of a study [PDF] that evaluates the success rate of various types of phishing scams. The study, titled “Designing Ethical Phishing Experiments: A study of (ROT13) rOnl query features,” was also covered by Network World.

The researchers simulated a phishing attack by sending out bogus e-mails claiming to be from eBay and including what looked like a link to eBay. When all was said and done, 14 percent of the e-mail recipients clicked the link, suggesting that one in six people who receive phishing e-mails visit the phishing site.

I commend IU for exposing that maybe phishing is a bigger problem than people realize.