Word Notes 8.11.20
Ep 8 | 8.11.20

phishing (verb)

Transcript

Rick Howard: The word is phishing.

Rick Howard: Spelled: P as in perch, H as in halibut, I as in ice fish, S as in shark, H as in haddock, I is an ice fish again because there are only so many fish names to start with the letter I, N as in noodle fish, and G as in guppy.

Rick Howard: Definition: from the intrusion kill chain model, the delivery of a lure to a potential victim by pretending to be some trustworthy person or organization in order to trick the victim into revealing sensitive information.

Rick Howard: Example sentence: The advisory group OilRig has used LinkedIn to send phishing links to potential victims.

Rick Howard: Origin: according to KnowBe4, the word phishing, first appeared in a Usenet news group called AOH in 1996, and some of the very first phishing attacks used AOL Instant Messenger to deliver fake messages purportedly from AOL employees in the early 2000s. The word is part of l33tspeak. It started in the early 1980s as a shorthand to let readers know the author was part of the hacker community. In this case, the letters "ph" replaced a letter "f" in the word fishing, as in I fish with an "f" for bass in the lake. In hacking, I phish with a "ph" for login credentials from key employees at my target's organization.

Rick Howard: Context: hackers most commonly deliver phishing schemes through email, but they can come through any electronic communication systems like websites, phone systems and texting systems, specialized phishing schemes have their own similar sounding names like spearphishing for targeted phishing, vishing or voice phishing, and smishing for SMS phishing.