Important notice regarding
scam emails that will try to steal personal information if not ignored
by the recipients:
phishing
(fish´ing) (n.) The act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely
claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to
scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used
for identity theft. The e-mail directs the user to visit a Web site
where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords
and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers, that the
legitimate organization already has.
The Web site, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the user’s
information. For example, 2003 saw the proliferation of a phishing
scam in which users received e-mails supposedly from eBay claiming
that the user’s account was about to be suspended unless he clicked
on the provided link
and updated the credit card information that the genuine eBay already
had.
Because it is relatively simple to make a Web site look like a
legitimate organizations site by mimicking the HTML
code,
the scam counted on people being tricked into thinking they were
actually being contacted by eBay and were subsequently going to
eBay’s site to update their account information. By spamming large
groups of people, the “phisher” counted on the e-mail being read
by a percentage of people who actually had listed credit card numbers
with eBay legitimately.
Phishing, also referred to as brand spoofing
or carding, is a variation on “fishing,” the idea being
that bait is thrown out with the hopes that while most will ignore the
bait, some will be tempted into biting.
Other forms: phish (v.)
From http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/phishing.html
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