phishing

/ 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

Word History and Origins

Origin of phishing¹

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

Example Sentences

They don’t prevent you from accidentally sharing personal information online, protect you from phishing links or stop you from being tracked through cookies and browser fingerprinting.

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The term "smishing" is a combination of "SMS", or "short message service" - the technology behind text messages - and "phishing".

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You can still fall victim to phishing attacks.

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In this case, if it’s not a phishing scam with malware, it could be a person using this “official” email address to buy and/or sell fake products.

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"It looks like the attackers used a common technique of linking up Leah's private stolen email address with her publicly listed business number to launch a targeted phishing attack against the email account."

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