What is Phishing

An example of a phishing e- mail, disguised as an official e- mail from a (fictional) bank. The sender is attempting to trick the recipient into revealing secure information by "confirming" it at the phisher's website. Note the misspelling of the words received and discrepancy. Such mistakes are common in most phishing emails.

In the field of computer security, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites ( Youtube , Facebook , Myspace ), auction sites ( eBay ), online banks ( PayPal ), or IT Administrators ( Yahoo , ISPs , corporate) are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging , and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose URL and look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. Even when using SSL with strong cryptography for server authentication it is practically impossible to detect that the website is fake. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to fool users, and exploits the poor usability of current web security technologies. Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation , user training, public awareness, and technical security measures.

A phishing technique was described in detail in 1987 , and the first recorded use of the term "phishing" was made in 1996.

The term is a variant of fishing, probably influenced by phreaking ,and alludes to baits used to "catch" financial information and passwords.