Phishing is the act of attempting to acquire information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details (and sometimes, indirectly, money) by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public. Phishing emails may contain links to websites that are infected with malware. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail spoofing or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to deceive users, and exploits the poor usability of current web security technologies. Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical security measures.
A phishing technique was described in detail in 1987, and (according to its creator) the first recorded use of the term "phishing" was made in 1995. The term is a variant of fishing, probably influenced by phreaking, and alludes to "baits" used in hopes that the potential victim will "bite" by clicking a malicious link or opening a malicious attachment, in which case their financial information and passwords may then be stolen.
Read more about Phishing: History and Current Status of Phishing, Damage Caused By Phishing, Anti-phishing
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... Spy-phishing is a term coined by Jeffrey Aboud of Trend Micro at the Virus Bulletin 2006 conference in Montreal ... Through the use of spyware and other trojans, spy-phishing attempts to prolong the initial phishing attacks beyond the point at which the phishing site is available ...
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... A phishing kingpin, Valdir Paulo de Almeida, was arrested in Brazil for leading one of the largest phishing crime rings, which in two years stole between US$18 million and US$37 million ... UK authorities jailed two men in June 2005 for their role in a phishing scam, in a case connected to the U.S ... people were arrested by Japanese police on suspicion of phishing fraud by creating bogus Yahoo Japan Web sites, netting themselves ¥100 million (US$870,000) ...
... individual users to protect themselves from phishing ... Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced the Anti-Phishing Act of 2005, a bill that proposes a five-year prison sentence and/or fine for individuals who execute phishing attacks and use information ...
... In 2005 while working at Cloudmark, Abad spent six months examining the phishing underworld from the inside ... Whereas past phishing researchers believed that phishing was coordinated by highly organized criminals, Abad discovered that phishing rings were decentralized ... was the first examination of how the economy of phishing agents functioned, and highlighted the high degree of specialization within the economy ...