Walter S. MossbergJack Morse
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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 emails that appear to come from banks requesting recipients to verify their accounts by typing personal details, such as credit card information, into a website that has been disguised to look like the real thing. Such scams can be thought of as "fishing" for naive recipients.
Examples of phishing in a Sentence
Kurt Knutsson, Cyberguy Report, Fox News, 6 Nov. 2024
Meanwhile, the phishing page itself was hosted on a .es domain from Spain.
—Michael Kan, PCMAG, 7 Nov. 2024
These non-traditional attacks require more than the traditional phishing training, which is unlikely to cover these more sophisticated techniques.
—Lars Daniel, Forbes, 5 Nov. 2024
In recent years, cybercriminals have been able to use artificial intelligence to make their phishing attacks more successful.
—David Faris, Newsweek, 4 Nov. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Phishing.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/phishing. Accessed 29 Nov. 2024.
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Legal Definition
phishing
noun
alteration of fishing (probably influenced by phreaking illegal access to a phone system)
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