spear-phishing

British  

noun

1. the practice of sending fraudulent e-mails to extract financial data from computer users for purposes of identity theft, by mimicking a sender that the recipient knows

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Example Sentences

Tech companies like Twitter, now X, have been attacked via spear-phishing in the past.

From BBC • May 9, 2025

Mr. Klingner told The Times those cybertheft operations followed the same “modus operandi” as the bogus email spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. experts.

From Washington Times • Jun. 2, 2023

Searching for and processing raw data also exposes them to potential cyber incidents, including spear-phishing attacks and malware infection.

From Scientific American • May 8, 2023

In its earlier post-mortem, it blamed “advanced spear-phishing attacks” that compromised an employee who no longer worked at Sky Mavis — but it didn’t explain the exact mechanism of the hack.

From The Verge • Jul. 6, 2022

The attacks appear to be conventional spear-phishing attacks, similar to the Russian breach of John D. Podesta’s personal emails in 2016, when he was Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.

From New York Times • Jun. 4, 2020