The secret of phishers’ success | CNET News.com
For more info click on above link

Three U.S. academics have published research into why phishing scams are still finding success, years after widespread public warnings first appeared.

Most people have received an e-mail purporting to be from a bank or other online service that asks for personal and financial details. Occasionally, it has been for a bank or service for which the recipient is a customer. Even in that situation, many people still know to be wary.

For their paper, titled “Why Phishing Works,” (PDF here) Rachna Dhamija of Harvard University and Marti Hearst and J.D. Tygar of the University of California at Berkeley, conducted tests on a small sample of users. They found that 90 percent of subjects were unable to pick out a highly effective phishing e-mail when simply judging whether or not it was genuine.