phish

Formsphishes, phishing, phished

Pluralphishes

1. 1
   verbtransitive

   To attempt to steal sensitive information by sending fraudulent messages that impersonate a trusted source.

   Attackers phish unsuspecting users with emails that mimic well-known companies.

   The group phished thousands of employees before the security team caught on.

   Note

   Phishing came first, and the verb was carved out of it by back-formation: strip the -ing and a regular verb is left behind, conjugating as phishes, phished, phishing. It usually takes the targets as its object, as in phishing users, employees or a company's staff. Its force lies in exploiting the recipient's trust rather than any technical flaw in a system.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A fraudulent attempt to obtain sensitive information by impersonating a trustworthy source in an electronic message.

   Security staff flagged the message as a phish targeting newly hired employees.

   A well-crafted phish can fool even careful users into entering their credentials.

   Note

   A countable noun for a single attack, and often for the message itself: security staff flag a phish, and two of them are phishes. Like the verb, it was drawn from phishing. It names one instance of the wider practice, much as a scam names one fraud.

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