Phishing has been one of the fastest-growing types of online crime in recent years. Spam has evolved to a new and dangerous form known as ‘phishing’.
Phishing differs from spam in that it is generated by a criminal intent on stealing personal data for financial gain.
Phishing is a form of social engineering that consists of deceiving potential victims into revealing their personal or their company’s confidential information such as social security and financial account numbers, account passwords and other identity or security information.
The term 'social engineering' broadly refers to the act of manipulating people into unwittingly behaving in certain ways. Modern phishers are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Some phishing messages can be personalized, using the target’s actual name.
URLs can be disguised so that discrepancies do not appear. When in doubt the safest thing to do is always to access the institution by typing (not copying), it’s name directly in the web browser rather than clicking on a link in e-mail.
Phishing remains a significant problem despite affecting a relatively small fraction of total internet users. The growing number of internet users coupled with the ease and low cost of carrying out phishing attacks have exposed virtually every e-mail user to phishing attacks.
What is phishing?
