It is like fishing in the sense that criminals send out mass emails "bait" hoping someone bites. The bait is an e-mail out falsely claiming to be a legiti¬mate organization like a bank, credit card company, online pay¬ment service, or any service, company or website they think people will trust in an attempt to trick people into giving private information that can be used for identity theft, theft from your bank, online account, etc.

The e-mail will direct the unsuspect¬ing person to visit a Web site where they are asked to update personal information, such as user names, passwords, credit card information, and bank ac¬count numbers, which the legiti¬mate organization already has. This Web site, however, is spoofed and was set up only to steal information.