Do you remember the movie “Home Alone”, there’s the ‘police officer’ who visited the McCallisters. Although he was a burglar, his convincing police officer impersonation led them to volunteer information about where they were going and for how long. He was fishing for information (which is where ‘phishing’ comes from). With that info he was able to plan the robbery. ‘Phish’-ers do the same with your computer via email, messenger or phone.
The trick is to always pay attention to who you’re talking to. Someone may pretend to be an official authority e.g. your Bank, Microsoft, the Police or any other trusted organisation but you should check first before giving away any information.
That’s what phishing is: someone using their computer to try and trick you into telling someone information that should be kept secret.
You should note that almost NONE of those sorts of organisations will try to contact you by email or phone. Usually they wait for YOU to contact them.
Phishing is also like in Little Red Riding Hood, where the big bad wolf puts on Grandma’s clothes and pretends to be Grandma. Little Red Riding Hood is suspicious, so she asks lots of questions like, ‘Grandma, why are your ears so big?’ and he puts on a voice and answers, ‘All the better to hear you with’. All the time the wolf is pretending to be her grandma, he is really getting ready to eat Little Red Riding Hood.
Phishing is a person pretending to be someone whom you TRUST and getting you to confide your information to them or let your guard down. If you do this, your computer (laptop, desktop, tablet or even your phone) could be infected with a virus that they use for nefarious purposes.
You should ask questions too but NOT by talking the grandma! She’s a liar! Instead, look for hints e.g. are there any spelling mistakes? Does the logo look weird? And here’s the BIG ONE…is the email address the correct domain name. The email address you see from the sender may not be their email address! You can show the real one by hovering your mouse over the email address of the sender and it will show what the actual email address is. If it is not the right address – beware!
e.g. if you get an email from “ASB” – then the email address should be something like
By the broadest definition, phishing would describe someone impersonating a trustworthy source with the purpose of acquiring sensitive information. In the computing world, such information usually includes usernames, passwords, or credit card details. Keep these things to yourself.