Phishing is a scam that deceives users into revealing personal information, often by impersonating trustworthy entities, with its 'ph' spelling influenced by 'phreaking'.
Phishing is a scam where an email user is tricked into revealing personal information, often by impersonating legitimate institutions. The term's spelling is influenced by 'phreaking', a term related to phone fraud.
| Word | phishing |
|---|---|
| Date | August 17, 2007 |
| Type | noun |
| Syllables | FISH-ing |
| Etymology | "Phishing" is one of the many new computer-related terms that have found their way into the general lexicon over the past decade or so. Its "ph" spelling is influenced by an earlier word for an illicit act: "phreaking." Phreaking involves fraudulently using an electronic device to avoid paying for telephone calls, and its name is suspected of being a shortening of "phone freak." A common phishing scam involves sending e-mails that appear to come from banks requesting recipients to verify their accounts by typing personal details, such as credit card information, into a Web site that has been disguised to look like the real thing. Such scams can be thought of as "fishing" for naive recipients. |
| Examples | The widespread use of electronic banking and financial transactions has prompted the FTC to crack down on cyber crimes, such as phishing. |
| Definition | : a scam by which an e-mail user is duped into revealing personal or confidential information which the scammer can use illicitly |
Tags: wordoftheday::noun
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