spear-phishing

spear-phishing
pp.
Phishing targeted at a specific person, usually by sending an e-mail message crafted to appear as though it was sent by someone known to the recipient. Also: spear phishing, spearphishing.
spear-phish v.
spear phish n.
spear-phisher n.
Example Citations:
More recently, however, a hybrid form of phishing, dubbed "spear-phishing," has emerged and raised alarms among the digital world's watchdogs. Spear-phishing is a distilled and potentially more potent version of phishing. That's because those behind the schemes bait their hooks for specific victims instead of casting a broad, ill-defined net across cyberspace hoping to catch throngs of unknown victims.
Spear-phishing, say security specialists, is much harder to detect than phishing. Bogus e-mail messages and Web sites not only look like near perfect replicas of communiqués from e-commerce companies like eBay or its PayPal service, banks or even a victim's employer, but are also targeted at people known to have an established relationship with the sender being mimicked.
— Timothy L. O'Brien, "Gone Spear-Phishin'," The New York Times, December 4, 2005
"After three unsuccessful attempts to access your account, your Online Profile has been locked. This has been done to secure your accounts and to protect your private information. You may unlock your profile by going to: ..."
Sounds like a normal phishing e-mail, right? But what if the e-mail seemed to come from the head of IT at your small business, warning about your company account? Would you click the link?
Today's phishers hope so. In fact, the excerpt above didn't appear in the usual global barrage of e-mail sent out to catch recipients with eBay or PayPal accounts. Instead, it went exclusively to students and faculty of the University of Kentucky as part of a directed, or "spear-phishing," attack against the small, 33,000-member university credit union this May.
— Erik Larkin, "Spear phishing," PC World, November 1, 2005
Earliest Citation:
The APWG is still reviewing and receiving proposals for this meeting. The working agenda for the meeting as of August 20, 2004 is as follows:
Spear Phishing: What Happens when Phishers optimize the “list-creation” aspect of phishing?
— "APWG September Meeting in Washington, DC," Anti-Phishing Working Group, August 20, 2004
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Look at other dictionaries:

  • spear phishing — See: phishing Category: Business, LLCs & Corporations Category: Small Claims Court & Lawsuits Nolo’s Plain English Law Dictionary. Gerald N. Hill, Kathleen Thompson Hill. 2009 …   Law dictionary

  • Spear phishing — Le spear phishing ou au Québec harponnage[1] est un phishing basé sur la récolte d informations personnelles notamment sur les réseaux sociaux. Cette étude préalable va permettre au pirate de réaliser un message (un mail) qui sera personnalisé… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • spear phishing — /ˈspɪə fɪʃɪŋ/ (say spear fishing) noun a targeted form of phishing which focuses on a specific organisation using emails disguised as messages from managers, colleagues, etc …  

  • spear-phishing — n. targeted, precision phishing …   English slang

  • Phishing — [ˈfɪʃɪŋ] werden Versuche von Tätern genannt, an Daten eines Internet Benutzers zu gelangen, z. B. über gefälschte WWW Adressen, E Mail oder Kurznachrichten, um die Benutzer zu schädigen (Kontoplünderung). Der Begriff ist ein englisches Kunstwort …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • phishing — n. Using email and misleading websites to entice users to provide their credit card numbers, bank account numbers, passwords, usernames, and other confidential information in order to use that information for criminal purposes such as theft. The… …   Law dictionary

  • Phishing — In the field of computer security, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic… …   Wikipedia

  • Phishing — Éste es un ejemplo de un intento de phishing. Haciéndose pasar por un email oficial, trata de engañar a los clientes del banco para que den información acerca de su cuenta con un enlace a la página …   Wikipedia Español

  • phishing — (FISH.ing) pp. Creating a replica of an existing Web page to fool a user into submitting personal, financial, or password data. adj. phish v. phisher n. Example Citations: Phishing is the term coined by hackers who imitate legitimate companies in …   New words

  • Phishing — Hameçonnage Exemple de phishing L’hameçonnage, appelé plus couramment phishing, est une technique utilisée par des fraudeurs pour obtenir des renseignements personnels dans le but de perpétrer une usurpation d identité. La technique consiste à… …   Wikipédia en Français

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