Phishing

Photo of author

Grammarist

Phishing is the practice of sending fraudulent emails to unsuspecting people in an effort to trick them into revealing their credit card numbers, social security numbers, passwords or other personal information with the intent of stealing assets. Phishing is a method of identity theft, the word is coined from the idea of going fishing for information. The term phishing was first used in an online Usenet group in 1996 in reference to a scam which involved tricking AOL users into revealing their passwords. It is believed that the spelling is patterned after the term phreaking, which is a portmanteau of phone and freaking. Phishing is a noun and a verb, related words are phish, phishes, phished, phisher.

Examples

While students can have emails as well, Zepp said that it seems the phishing emails are coming only from employee accounts. (The Centre Daily Times)

Security researchers have discovered that since the start of the year, assorted phishing attacks have emerged targeting iCloud users in the UK and China. (The International Business Times)

Phishing email can be very generic where the attacker casts a wide net (thousands of messages) hoping someone will respond. (The Des Moines Register)

A Rockhurst University spokesman said Monday that the university would not comment on the pending lawsuit, which says it was reckless and willful in exposing personal identification data in W-2 forms to phishing scammers last month. (The Kansas City Star)

ICA warns of fake website that phishes for visa application and passport numbers (The Straits Times)

Despite this, an estimated 23 percent of workers fell for phishing mails in a recent test and 11 percent of the people that opened the mail also opened the malicious attachments. (Forbes Magazine)