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Phishing
relating to computer and networking security & crime prevention
The word Phishing
was publicly used about a decade ago, and even long before then
in the dim dark underworld of hackers.
Hackers tend
to replace the letter 'f' with the letters 'ph' following a trend
from the 1970's when John T Draper (AKA Captain Crunch) was jailed
for hacking. He operated the infamous 'blue box' for hacking into
the telephone exchange - this was termed 'phone phreaking', soon
afterwards hacking became 'phreaking'. Another word you willhere
about her is 'pharming'... more later.
Phishing is
exactly how it sounds, fishing. Most of us have heard the term 'Hook,
Line & Sinker', it is used when someone falls for a prank or
scam, the bait was laid and they bit.
So, in Internet
terms what is Phishing? A few years ago millions of AOL members
received a very official looking email, there was no reason to suspect
it wasn't from an official source, it contained all the corporate
identity that one would expect. The subject line would read '"To
update your AOL records, click on the link below. " or ""According
to our terms of services, you will have to confirm your e-mail by
the following link or your account will be suspended within 24 hours
for security reasons".
By means is
AOL alone in this Phishing scam, every major bank, credit card and
online transaction facility including PayPal and Ebay has been dragged
into it.
The irony is
that they have even sent emails pretending to be from companies
such as Amazon, suggesting that someone has tried to tamper with
your account and ask you to change the account details by confirming
your details, thus 'proving' you are the genuine person.
Human nature
is that we get concerned about someone using our account and remedy
the situation by providing personal and financial information …'hook,
line and sinker'. Millions and millions have been caught out and
sadly millions and millions more will too.
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