Phishing is a form of "social engineering" in which a cybercrook uses social skills to obtain or compromise personal information. Phishing attacks are delivered through email, pop-up messages or malicious web sites to trick the recipient into revealing personal information, often financial.
Phishing is delivered by Internet fraudsters through email or pop-up messages, often by forging the identity of well-known financial institutions. Examples of phishing (also known as brand spoofing or carding) include email that seemingly originates from a business or organization that you deal with; a reputable credit card company, bank, government agency or online payment service like PayPal. The polite crooks request updates, validation or confirmation of account information, often suggesting that there is a problem. The user is redirected to a fake site and tricked into entering their user account information, which is saved and used for unlawful purposes. Targeted groups have typically been people in the corporate world and against banking customers, but increasingly, phishing attacks are reaching students and retired people.
Besides the risks of spam, phishing doesn't necessarily harm your computer, but it can do a lot of damage if it results in identity theft. Once you have been tricked into revealing your personal information, the crooks fake your identity and run up bills or commit crimes in your name.