- Phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information, such as user names, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.
- Communications purporting to be from popular social websites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public.
- Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging, and often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. You should ALWAYS consider any e-mail asking for your account information to be fraudulent.
- There are often misspelled words in the e-mail, or poor grammar, but not always.
