phishing
noun/ˈfɪʃɪŋ/
Etymology Respelling of fishing (“trying to find”). In Usenet newsgroups, cracker and pirate groups used variant spellings of phish and warez (i.e. wares) to evade scans and filters by mainstream servers policing the ARPAnet/Internet. Compare other respelling slang like phat and phreak.
1
Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences The malicious act of keeping a false website or sending a false e-mail with the intent of masquerading as a trustworthy entity in order to acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details.
- Holonym: social engineering
- A growing number of U.S. cities are alerting residents to a widespread phishing scam involving fraudulent text messages about unpaid parking violations.2025 March 11, Sunny Yadav, “US Cities Warn of Surge in Unpaid Parking Phishing Text Scams”, in eSecurity Planet:
2
The act of circumventing security with an alias.
- Derived terms
- antiphishing, quishing
- Related terms
- phish, phisher, spearphishing