What is phishing?

I've always wondering what Phishing was.

 

kind of cheating
for example i make site paybal and put the same design as paypal.Now you come to my site and enter ur email and pass and my script will store it.Later i will come and retrieve ur data and login to real paypal and takes off your money

 

"phishing is an attempt to criminally and fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication"

 

You will see it a lot in emails impersonating banks and asking for your account details.

 

Wikipedia link for phishing

Pretty much what has been said..

 

Thank you for information. I'm about to ask the same question but I forget until I met this thread.

 

Phishing comes from Fishing... its using of fake website to steal your sensitive datas like bank logins, paypal passwords, credit cards,, hotmail passwords etc.etc.... phishing scripts are very easy to find and use... all they do is send a fake email to you so make it look like it was send from that bank or paypal or hotmail etc. and you fall in there trap.... its like Fishing... sometimes these wannabes get victims and sometime dont.... phishing dont work on everyone.... beside now yahoo mark a phishing mails and a danger red colour.... so phishing is not really easy anymore.... i get phishing emails everyday of paypal and bank of america.... even though i cant have a account at BOA... but these peoples dont know that... and so it make me laugh when they send me BOA fakies.... anyway becareful form these damn links as they contain dirty scripts that can install a keylogger just if you click the link.... so never click on links.....

 

read internet fraud blog

 

Easy to say, phishing is fishing. You and your precious information is the fish. The bait is in the link that were send to you via email, pm, whatever and once you click it, you're in a big trouble. The link usually about Paypal, bank account, whatever. So never click on a link but go to the real site instead.

 

Phishing - The luring of an internet user to reveal personal details (like passwords and credit card information) on a fake web page or email form pretending to come from a legitimate company (like their bank)..

Thanks

 

Its kind of cheating somebody on internet. Any of the false site to get some financial or sensitive information is known as phishing. False sites are developed with same look n content, that you wont be able to differentiate between the real one and the false one. Better to use the url which you know not the one which you receive by anyone for such cases related to money or anything else important to you.