A Brief History of Cybercrime and Cyberwarfare - The Technical and Social History of Software Engineering - page 405

Pharming
The term “pharming” is based on “farming” and uses the same “ph” combination
as “phishing.” Pharming is a form of phishing that is aimed more at e-commerce
and banking sites than at other kinds of users. One major issue with pharming is
that it can affect routers, and once a router has invalid information, then anyone
joining that network can be infected.
Because phishing and pharming are close to identical, there is some objection
to the term “pharming.” Of the two, phishing seems the oldest and was noted as
far back as 1995.
Phishing
“Phishing” is an obvious play on the word “fishing” and has more or less the same
meaning—cast an attractive bait and wait to see what bites. Phishing in several
forms predates the computer era. Both surface mail and telephones have been used
to solicit information from unsuspecting victims long before computers existed.
Telegrams were also used in the days when they were a fast form of communica-
tion.
The most common forms of phishing today involve emails or instant mes-
saging. In one very common form, the sender pretends to be an official of a foreign
government (often Nigeria) who needs to transmit funds to an American bank. The
email requests that the recipient send bank information so the money can be trans-
ferred, and the recipient will then be able to keep a portion as a reward. A more
recent variation involves pretending to be a serving officer in Afghanistan or Iraq
who has come across funds that can't easily be taken out of the country.
More recent and more subtle forms of phishing involve stolen email lists. Using
a name known to the recipient from a stolen email list, the sender writes an email
with a message like “I'm writing this with tears in my eyes . . .” The message
then goes on to describe some kind of tragedy such as a mugging or stolen wallet
that left the person with no money and no identification. There is a request to send
funds to pay for a hotel, rental car, or something else.
Phishing attacks aimed at specific individuals using personal information such
as their social networks or lists of friends from stolen email lists is called spear
phishing .
An even more sophisticated form of phishing is called whale phishing because
it is aimed at senior executives. This kind of phishing is preceded by very focused
email thefts from a law firm or accounting firm known to be used by the intended