Fishing? Phishing?

Lecturer told us - Do not "fishing" on internet. I was wondering what is the relevant between "fishing" and internet? The correction of "fishing" is "phishing". Definition of phishing is the criminal fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, password, and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

Recent phishing attempt is targeting the customers of banks and online payment services, for example e-mail. While the first such examples were sent indiscriminately in the expectation that some would be received by customers of a given bank or service, recent research has shown that phishers may in principle be able to determine which banks potential victims use, and target bogus e-mails accordingly. The damage caused by phishing ranges from denial of access to e-mail to substantial financial loss.

There are several different techniques to combat phishing, including legislation and technology created specifically to protect against phishing:
* social responses
* technical responses
* legal responses

With my last word, phishing is typically carried out by e-mail and by instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. Even when using server authentication it may require tremendous skill to detect that the website is fake. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to fool user, and exploits the poor usability of current web security technologies. Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical security measures.




* Above is an example of a phishing e-mail, disguised as an official e-mail from a (fictional) bank. The sender is attempting to trick the recipient into revealing confidential information by "confirming" it at the phisher's website. Note the misspelling of the words received and discrepancy. Such mistakes are common in most phishing emails. Also note that although the URL of the bank's webpage appears to be legitimate, it actually links to the phisher's web page.