Phishing, as wikipedia puts it, is a criminal activity using social engineering techniques. I receive daily mails that seem to come from respected websites like ebay, amazon or financial sites that ask me to update my software by following a link from within the email. This leads to a fake website that looks similar to the website that you normally visit. Once you enter your login data the criminals will have and use that information for their own advantage.
Phishing Explained
Phishing, which is a construct of the words Password and Fishing, becomes more and more common on the internet. Many people recieve daily mails from sites like ebay and paypal but also from financial sites like citibank that look authentic and direct you to a website that looks like a copy of the original site. They “phish” your login data or credit card information from that fake website.
Amazon Phishing page
A Phishing page emulates a well known trusted website and tries to capture (phish) your login data for the original website. Most phishing incidences start with mass emailing potential victims. The mail looks like an exact copy of a mail send by the original site with the only difference that a url is provided that is most of the time slightly different from that of the original site.
