Phishing is what a spammer does when he or she wants to steal someone's identity. Some have labeled the action as "Social-engineering hacking done through e-mail", but there are no hackers involved in this scam. Phishing is all the work of spammers and conmen. We have all seen these e-mails:
Dear Citibank member, As part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to reduce the instance of fraud on our Web site, we are undertaking a period review of our member accounts. You are requested to visit our site, logon to your account and fill in the required information.
Or
Dear AOL member, We regret to inform you, but the credit card information for your account has expired. To enjoy your AOL experience and keep your account active, you must enter new valid credit card information within 24 hours of receiving this e-mail.
And we are going to continue to see these and a lot more because it works.
It doesn't matter how many times you warn people about scams, or not to open unknown e-mail and attachments, a certain number of people are going to do it anyways. Just two weeks ago I sent out an e-mail to all the users in my company telling them not to open any unknown or suspicious e-mail. My warning made the situation even worse and it just made them even more curious. I asked one;
"Didn't you read my e-mail about the virus that is propagating within our network and my warning not to open any attachments that you where not specifically expecting?"
"I did." he replied. "But I wanted to see what the document was."
As long as there are suckers, "phishing" or identity thief through e-mail is going to be prosperous to thieves. And as it should be. If no for consumer spending the economy would lay stale and stagnate An excellent example of this is all the junk mail delivered by the U.S. Post Office, as long as there is a mailbox, you may already be a millionaire. Or your penis can be even larger, or you can take a magic pill to lose weight, lower your mortgage, receive a college degree, or any other item that defies logic.
So a bad day of Phishing is still better than a good day of work.
…yeah, I know.