Think of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf: The Big Bad Wolf asks Little Red Riding Hood where she lives, what her grandmother’s name is and what she is carrying in her basket. Naïve, Little Red Riding Hood shares important information with this courteous wolf. It doesn’t take long for the wolf to find himself in the house and pretend to be Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother. Now imagine this evil wolf as being a phishing email.
The word “phishing” derives from the English word “fishing”, meaning fishing in French, because the victims of phishing are attracted like fish. THE fake emails from banks, subscription and payment services, or so-called friends or colleagues, act like worms on the hook. The people targeted notice too late that they are already harpooned on the dangerous phishing hook.
Even before the advent of the Internet, data theft using trickery was part of the catalog of criminal activity. This was mostly shoulder surfing, where important data such as PIN codes, addresses, bank details or telephone numbers were spied over the shoulder. Phishing presents itself as the latest evolution of data theft for the Internet generation. You’ve probably seen emails pass through your inbox, where your supposed bank lays out an urgent problem, Amazon wants to deliver a package you never ordered, or an unknown uncle has bequeathed you an inheritance of millions of dollars. The list of phishing methods is long and growing every year.
