phishing
PHISHING |
EXAMPLE |
TIPS
|
LINKS
phishing
(FISH.ing) pp. Creating a replica of an existing Web
page to fool a user into submitting personal, financial,
or password data. - adj. - phisher n.
Phishing
attacks use 'spoofed' e-mails and fraudulent websites
designed to fool recipients into divulging personal
financial data such as credit card numbers, account
usernames and passwords, social security numbers, etc.
Pharming uses the same kind of spoofed sites, but uses
malware/spyware to redirect users from real websites to
the fraudulent sites. By hijacking the trusted brands of
well-known banks, online retailers and credit card
companies, phishers are able to convince recipients to
respond to them.
Phishing
is the term coined by hackers who imitate legitimate
companies in e-mails to entice people to share passwords
or credit-card numbers. Recent victims include Citizens
Bank, Citi Bank, Best Buy and eBay, where people were
directed to Web pages that looked nearly identical to
the companies' sites.
phishing
has been described by the FBI to be the "hottest, and
most troubling, new scam on the Internet." The name
appears to have no connection to the band Phish.
Phishing
attacks use 'spoofed' e-mails and fraudulent websites
designed to fool recipients into divulging personal
financial data such as credit card numbers, account
usernames and passwords, social security numbers, etc.
By hijacking the trusted brands of well-known banks,
online retailers and credit card companies, phishers are
able to convince up to 5% of recipients to respond to
them. See
our example of a fraudulent e-mail with
examples on how to determine a piece of “phishy” e-mail.
Phishing
is a high-tech scam that may also use spam or pop-up
messages to deceive you into disclosing your credit card
numbers, bank account information, Social Security
number, passwords, or other sensitive information.
According
to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), phishers send an
email or pop-up message that claims to be from a
business or organization that you deal with – for
example, your Internet service provider (ISP), bank,
online payment service, or even a government agency. The
message usually says that you need to “update” or
“validate” your account information. It might threaten
some dire consequence if you don’t respond. The message
directs you to a Web site that looks just like a
legitimate organization’s site, but it isn’t. The
purpose of the bogus site? To trick you into divulging
your personal information so the operators can steal
your identity and run up bills or commit crimes in your
name.
