What is Phishing - Knowledge Is Free

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Monday 16 December 2013

What is Phishing

Phishing is a type of Internet fraud that seeks to acquire a user’s credentials by deception. It includes theft of passwords, credit card numbers, bank account details and other confidential information.



Phishing messages usually take the form of fake notifications from banks, providers, e-pay systems and other organizations. The notification will try to encourage a recipient, for one reason or another, to urgently enter/update their personal data. Such excuses usually relate to loss of data, system breakdown, etc.

Phishing attacks are becoming more advanced in their exploitation of social engineering techniques. In most cases, fraudsters try to frighten a recipient by providing a seemingly important reason that the recipient should divulge their personal data. Such messages usually contain threats to block an account if a recipient does not fulfill the requirements therein. For instance, “if you do not provide your personal data by the end of the week, your account will be blocked”. Ironically, it is not unknown for phishers to make reference to the necessity of improving anti-phishing systems as one of the reasons for the disclosure of confidential information. A typical ruse might be “if you want to secure yourself against phishing, click the link and enter your user name and password”.

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