Fight Online Crime with Grammar

We have all seen them: emails with bad grammar, spelling mistakes and other problems. The writers ask us to go to a web page or open a file linked to the email. But if we do, the result is sharing personal or financial information.

Here is the good news. Anyone with some knowledge of grammar can find out that these are not official messages from a bank or an internet service. We will learn how to recognize them in today's Everyday Grammar.

Cybersecurity experts call these email or text messages "phishing."

You might think about it as trying to catch fish, but this word is spelled with "ph" not “f.” Hackers came up with the word in the 1970s basing it on another cybercrime called "phone phreaking.” Phishing describes the method of sending emails into a "sea of internet users" hoping some will "take the bait" or get caught up in an illegal activity.

The Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, an agency of the U.S. government, says there ........ full article

FULL ARTICLE: Learning English