Etymology

phishing

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Today it means: The malicious act of keeping a false website or sending a false e-mail with the intent of masquerading as a trustworthy entity in order to acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details. Full definition →

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The story

Respelling of fishing (“trying to find”). In Usenet newsgroups, cracker and pirate groups used variant spellings of phish and warez (i.e. wares) to evade scans and filters by mainstream servers policing the ARPAnet/Internet. Compare other respelling slang like phat and phreak.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.