phishing

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

a social engineering attack method in which an attacker impersonates a trustworthy entity such as a bank, government agency, or known individual in fraudulent communications, typically email, text message, or fake websites, to deceive victims into revealing sensitive information such as passwords, credit card numbers, or authentication tokens; the term is a deliberate misspelling of fishing, reflecting the idea of baiting victims; phishing remains the most common initial access vector in cybersecurity breaches and has evolved into spear phishing (targeted), whaling (targeting executives), and smishing (via SMS)