Home › Work & Office Life › Office IT & Tech Support › phishing

phishing

FISH-ing /ˈfɪʃ.ɪŋ/

nounverbB2TOEFLIELTS

professionalgeneral

The fraudulent practice of sending emails or other messages purporting to be from reputable companies in order to induce individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.

Phishing relies on social engineering (manipulating human psychology) rather than brute-force hacking to breach a system.

The story behind the word. Coined in the mid-1990s by hackers targeting AOL accounts. The 'ph' spelling is a nod to the early hacking subculture known as 'phreaking' (phone hacking), combined with the metaphor of throwing out bait (the email) to catch unsuspecting 'fish' (victims).

Word relationships

social engineering: Social engineering is the broad category of psychological manipulation, while phishing is a specific subset of social engineering conducted via digital messages.

Commonly confused with

spam: Spam is simply unsolicited bulk email (usually advertising), whereas phishing is specifically malicious and designed to steal sensitive information.

Word family

phisher (noun): A person who engages in phishing.

Collocations

phishing email
phishing scam
fall victim to phishing

Example sentences

"The security team warned that the recent email asking for password verifications was a sophisticated phishing attempt." An IT security warning sent to employees.

Memory hook

The hackers are 'fishing' for your passwords, but they spell it with a 'ph' because they are 'phone/tech' thieves. Fishing for passwords with fake bait.

When not to use

Do not use to describe a direct system hack or virus installation that does not involve deceptive communication.

Fun facts

The earliest recorded phishing attacks were launched against AOL in 1995, using fake billing requests to steal user credentials.