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

The emails caused concern for some users on social media, who feared it was a scam or phishing attempt designed to glean more of their details.

From BBC

Economic uncertainties are driving down cybersecurity hiring, stretching security teams thin amid a proliferation of data breaches, phishing and ransomware attacks, enterprise technology leaders and recruiters say.

From The Wall Street Journal

The first part allegedly involved a phishing scam, and not of the seafood kind.

From The Wall Street Journal

Half to three-quarters of global spam and phishing are now AI-generated, says Brian Singer, a Ph.D. candidate at Carnegie Mellon University who researches the use of large language models for cyberattacks and defenses.

From The Wall Street Journal

The attacks have largely focused on leaking documents through publicly known vulnerabilities that can be exploited by scanning computer networks for weaknesses or by launching classic phishing attacks, analysts said.

From The Wall Street Journal