Phishing
Not Fishing, Phishing.
Strange name?
Phishing is based on the idea being that bait is thrown out with the hopes that while most will ignore the bait, some will be tempted into biting.
So...What is it?
Phishing is the act of sending a person an email falsly claiming to be a legitimate company or enterprise so they can scam this person into giving up their private information that can be later on used for identity theft.
What will is do?
The email will direct the person to a website where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords, credit card details, bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization already has.
Why do we fall for it?
We fall for it, because it looks exactly the same as a legitimate site. Phishing companys mimick the HTML code. We are lead to believe that our account might be suspended or... it needs refreshing and we need to enter the details again to un-suspend it.
Any Examples?
In 2003; A number of people recieved emails supposedly from eBay claiming the users account would be suspended, unless the user clicked the link provided and updated credit card info. The scam counted on people being tricked they were actually being contacted from eBay. By spamming large groups of people, the 'phisher' counted on the email being read and trusted by a percentage of these people.