noun

• The fraudulent practice of sending emails purporting to be from reputable companies in order to induce individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.

  as modifier ‘an email that is likely a phishing scam’

  More example sentences

  • ‘The modern era of phishing is exemplified by emails messages from Nigerians posing as business partners trying to move money out of the African country.’
  • ‘The second issue I have is that the most common attacks today collect passwords through phishing.’
  • ‘To avoid being a victim of phishing, never respond to e-mail requests for personal information, no matter how official the message looks.’
  • ‘Now I'm seeing a lot more phishing: spam that purports to be from Paypal, Amazon, your bank or, hey, any bank at all.’
  • ‘The idea, similar to the way some have tried to stop spam, is that people can easily report a site that is designed for phishing, and it goes into the communal database.’