Phishing 

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Latest news on Phishing, providing comprehensive coverage of phishing scams, phishing emails, email scams, smishing, vishing, quishing, spoofing, spear phishing, business email compromise (BEC), identity theft, fraud, scammers, social engineering and APWG research.

Phishing is the use of deceptive emails, texts, calls and fake websites to trick people into handing over passwords, card details or money. It is one of the most common routes into cybercrime, feeding identity theft, fraud and many data breaches. Scammers pose as banks, delivery firms, tax authorities, employers and trusted brands, while spoofing makes messages look genuine.

The tactics keep evolving. Spear phishing targets named individuals, smishing arrives by text, vishing by phone call and quishing through QR codes. Business email compromise (BEC) aims at finance teams with fake invoices and urgent payment requests. AI tools now help scammers write fluent, personalised messages and mimic voices, and deepfakes add a further layer of deception.

Phishing-as-a-service kits sell ready-made fake login pages to criminals, some designed to capture multi-factor authentication codes. Researchers such as the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) record millions of attacks a year, with social media, SMS and QR code scams growing alongside email. Takedowns of fake sites and legal action against scam operators continue, while debate persists over how far platforms, banks and telecoms should share responsibility for protecting and reimbursing victims.

Behind the statistics are real people, from pensioners to company executives, and losses can be financial and emotional. Embarrassment often stops victims reporting, which is why awareness campaigns, bank warnings and workplace training stress that anyone can be caught out. In the UK, suspicious emails can be forwarded to report@phishing.gov.uk, run by the NCSC, scam texts to 7726, and fraud losses reported through Report Fraud, the service that replaced Action Fraud.

Phishing is far from new. Fraudsters posed as service staff to steal online passwords in the mid-1990s, and the word is commonly traced to a play on "fishing", with the "ph" echoing early phone phreaking. Spoofed banking and payment sites became widespread in the early 2000s, and the APWG was formed in 2003 to bring industry and law enforcement together. Today's defences include spam filters, email authentication, passkeys and multi-factor authentication, yet attackers adapt quickly.

Staying informed is one of the best protections against phishing. Our NewsNow feed on phishing brings together the latest headlines on scams, fraud warnings, spoofing, smishing, vishing, identity theft, cybercrime and APWG findings, delivering comprehensive, up-to-date coverage from reliable sources.