The act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be “phishing”  Be careful of fraud emails sent to you asking for your password or other personal information that look like they’ve been sent by an established legitimate enterprise or famous website or payment service. Usually, these emails are fishing for your information and are coming from someone who wants to hack into your account.

If you get an email or pop-up message that asks for personal or financial information, do not reply. And don’t click on the link in the message, either. Legitimate companies don’t ask for this information via email. If you are concerned about your account, contact the organization mentioned in the email using a telephone number you know to be genuine, or open a new Internet browser session and type in the company’s correct Web address yourself. In any case, don’t cut and paste the link from the message into your Internet browser; phishers often make links look like they go to one site, but actually send you somewhere else.