Phishing (also called brand spoofing or carding) is a technique for acquiring personal or sensitive information; e.g., credit card or bank account numbers and passwords often resulting in fraud; identify theft, and even financial loss. It has been around since 1996 but is becoming more common and more sophisticated. It's a form of cyber-crime that's growing faster than the ability of the police or courts to deal with it. The word "phishing" is simply a play on the word "fishing" ¿ scammers drop email lures into the sea of Internet users, hoping to hook consumers personal information.The majority of phishing is conducted by email masquerading as trustworthy electronic correspondence that contains hijacked brand names of banks, credit card companies, Social networking sites, or ecommerce sites. The persuasive inflammatory language of the email combined with a legitimate looking Web site is used to convince recipients to disclose sensitive information.