Phishing Glossary

Browse 14 phishing terms defined in plain English, from the cultural dictionary of computing.

14 Phishing Terms

Consent Phishing
A phishing technique that tricks users into granting malicious applications access through legitimate consent flows, often in cloud identity platforms. Because...
Email Filtering
The inspection and classification of inbound or outbound email to block spam, phishing, malware, or policy violations. Modern email filtering combines...
Email Header Analysis
The examination of routing metadata, authentication results, timestamps, sender fields, and relay paths in an email header to understand origin and detect...
Email Impersonation
A tactic where an attacker makes an email appear to come from a trusted person, brand, or internal source in order to deceive recipients. It may involve...
Malicious Document
A file such as a Word document, PDF, spreadsheet, or archive crafted to exploit a vulnerability, trigger unsafe behavior, or lure a user into enabling malware....
Malicious Link
A URL crafted to lead a victim to phishing pages, malware downloads, exploit kits, or other harmful destinations. Malicious links are often disguised through...
Phishing Campaign
A coordinated attempt to deceive many targets with fraudulent messages, websites, or requests in order to steal credentials, deliver malware, or manipulate...
Phishing Detection
The identification of phishing messages, domains, pages, or behaviors through content analysis, sender validation, threat intelligence, user reports, or...
Phishing Domain
A domain name registered or used to host phishing pages, redirect victims, or lend credibility to fraudulent communications. Phishing domains often mimic...
Phishing Email
An email designed to trick recipients into revealing credentials, opening malware, sending money, or taking some other harmful action. Phishing emails...
Phishing Prevention
The combination of controls used to reduce phishing success, including mail filtering, domain authentication, safe browsing, phishing-resistant MFA, awareness...
Phishing Simulation
A controlled internal exercise that sends realistic but benign phishing-style messages to measure and improve user awareness, reporting, and response habits....
QR Code Phishing
A phishing technique that hides a malicious link or payment destination inside a QR code. It shows up in application security, identity, infrastructure, or...
Quick Response Code Attack
An attack that uses a QR code to direct a victim to a phishing page, malicious download, fraudulent payment flow, or other unsafe destination. QR code attacks...

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