Did you say Phishing?! :O

Hello Friends! ^_^

I hope you all are doing great! So Today I would like to discuss about - Phishing! :O Another much heard word, and a word that sometimes scares some people the main reason being, experience, of themselves or others! Something, that scares you from using the Internet! Something that scares you of shopping online! Phew! I guess, I used much adjectives and phrases to signify the terror of phishing(LOL!). But seriously, it is becoming a BIG Problem these days when the use of Internet is at its Peak! Phishing is something, we all have heard of, but most of us only have slight fleetingly sort of idea about its actual definition. So its time to make everyone know(well atleast on my part I am doing it for you all my readers!) what this PHISHING is!

In the words of Your Wikipedia(:P) "Phishing is a way of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication." Simple to understand, isn't it?! The interesting part is, Why is it called Phishing! (huh! Sounds like Fishing spelled wrong! Don't laugh as yet, its true! :O) Yes! Phishing comes from the actual word Fishing only. During fishing, the fisherman outs a bait like a worm or something like that(which may attract the fish) and the fish gets attracted to it, tends to eat it, and then! WHOA! The fish is caught, ending up being a VICTIM! Similar thing happens with a victim of Electronic Phishing. A user gets attracted to the bait, that is a camouflaged link to something UNSAFE in the form of a friendly link or something funny, or anything that might catch the eye of the reader! And then the user ends up clicking it, and enters the realm of the "Phisher" and what happens next? Well, we know it already! :/

The big problem is that a Phishing link is generally camouflaged in such a perfect thing that it would cent-percent catch the reader's interest! Some popular Phishing scams include, "YOU HAVE WON 50000000000000000 POUNDS!" (LOL!LOL!LOL!), "HEAVY DISCOUNT", "REPLICA WATCHES", "#%$^&*)*(&*^"(You can understand, not worth sharing online, :p), "See this Funny Video", etc. etc.!!

A good article explaining how phishing works can be found on howstuffworks.com - CLICK HERE for the article

Another article, at the Website of Microsoft about Phishing, I think, everyone must read it too.