Definition of PHISHING

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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 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 of phishing in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Elsewhere, Russian criminal gangs are getting into business email compromise—a fancy term for phishing scams—which can only end well. — Brian Barrett, Wired, "Security News This Week: 15 Billion Stolen Logins Are Circulating on the Dark Web," 11 July 2020 Local election offices remain susceptible to email phishing attempts and website hacks that could penetrate state voter registration databases and other critical systems. — Anchorage Daily News, "Election experts warn of November disaster," 11 July 2020 Hackers for hire, a particularly ignominious phishing campaign, and more of the week's top security news. — Brian Barrett, Wired, "Security News This Week: Zoom Shut Down US-Based Activists at China's Request," 13 June 2020 Microsoft customers were targeted in a massive phishing campaign that has sought to defraud users in 62 countries since December. — Washington Post, "Microsoft reports phishing campaign; Philip Morris wins marketing approval," 7 July 2020 Phishing attacks Not surprisingly, hackers are out to steal your banking credentials through sophisticated phishing attacks as more people work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. — Susan Tompor, Detroit Free Press, "Disappearing cash scares consumers in COVID-19 era," 30 June 2020 Apart from the risk of spending too much time on silly animal videos, there’s a greater menace — that of being financially and emotionally manipulated by malware, phishing schemes or scams. — Elizabeth Heath, Washington Post, "Go ahead and watch. Cute or funny animal videos can be good for you.," 26 June 2020 As a result, this girl now goes to senior centers to help older adults understand the basics of cybersecurity and learn ways to protect themselves, from password protection to recognizing phishing scams. — Sylvia Acevedo, Wired, "The Cyberwar Needs More Women on the Front Lines," 11 June 2020 The activity is also in keeping with Russia's actions ahead of the 2016 United States presidential election in which Russian hackers launched highly consequential phishing attacks against campaigns and political organizations. — Andy Greenberg, Wired, "Security News This Week: China and Iran Tried to Hack the Biden and Trump Campaigns," 6 June 2020

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'phishing.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.