Internet Attackers on Phishing Expeditions
By Larry Seltzer

As I said in my 2004 Outlook column, our e-mail accounts are now filled with some recent advances in the field of phishing. If you haven't been paying attention, the term refers to a particular type of Internet scam in which a user is tricked into giving up personal information, like bank account information.

According to Wordspy, the term phishing comes from the fact that attackers are fishing for data. Why ph? Wordspy says something about using sophisticated techniques. If that's where it comes from, it's a pretty lame etymology. According to an FTC advisory on the problem, the technique is also known as carding. The FTC alert has some good guidelines for non-technical consumers.


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