phishing

British  

/ ˈfɪʃɪŋ /

noun

1. the practice of using fraudulent e-mails and copies of legitimate websites to extract financial data from computer users for purposes of identity theft

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Etymology

Origin of phishing

C21: from fishing in the sense of catching the unwary by offering bait; computer-hacker slang often replaces f with ph

Example Sentences

It does not offer malware or phishing protection, both of which are provided by some competitors.

From Salon

He also laid out the possibility that there may not need to be a human manually carrying out scams on victims once they engage with mass phishing or fraud messages.

From BBC

Banks or police can now freeze accounts if they determine that a person is giving money to scammers, including falling for a fake job offer or a phishing attack.

From Barron's

"These attacks were executed via sophisticated phishing campaigns, designed to trick users into sharing information – SMS codes and/or Signal PIN – to gain access to users' accounts," it wrote.

From BBC

AI has made this type of attack more dangerous because it can generate thousands of personalized phishing emails to collect more passwords faster.

From The Wall Street Journal