[Ads-l] "spear phishing", not in OED; possible WOTY?

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

The term "spear phishing" was mentioned on the list in 2007. Michael
Quinion noted that he had mentioned the term in his newsletter of
April 2006.

Paul McFedries at Word Spy has a citation for August 20, 2004:
http://wordspy.com/index.php?word=spear-phishing

[Begin excerpt]
2004 (earliest)

The APWG is still reviewing and receiving proposals for this meeting.
The working agenda for the meeting as of August 20, 2004 is as
follows:

Spear Phishing: What Happens when Phishers optimize the
"list-creation" aspect of phishing?
--"APWG September Meeting in Washington, DC," Anti-Phishing Working
Group, August 20, 2004
[End excerpt]

The Usenet archive is a natural place to look, but I have not found an
effective way to search it, nowadays. Also, the dates given by Google
for webpages are, unfortunately, not reliable. The Internet Archive
WayBack Machine is great, but its coverage is sometimes sparse

Garson

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 5:30 AM, Eric Nielsen <ericbarnak at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Eric Nielsen <ericbarnak at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "spear phishing", not in OED; possible WOTY?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Probably not 1998 for "spear phishing". The only dated online occurrence in
> this book I can find comes from what appears to be a paper included in a
> later and updated edition of this book:
>
> Article dated 2007:
>
> "Security Issues and Recommendations for Online Social Networks"
> ENISA Position Paper No. 1
> Editor: Giles Hogben, ENISA
> October, 2007
> p.2
>
> "Threat SN.10 Spear phishing..."
>
> *http://tinyurl.com/npg5oqv <http://tinyurl.com/npg5oqv>*
>
> Eric
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 3:18 AM, Eric Nielsen <ericbarnak at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Eric Nielsen <ericbarnak at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: "spear phishing", not in OED; possible WOTY?
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> *A Google Books' search returned this (a possible dating to 1998):*
>>
>> *http://tinyurl.com/mlw6v42 <http://tinyurl.com/mlw6v42>*
>>
>> Eric
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 1:11 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>>
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> > -----------------------
>> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>> > Subject:      "spear phishing", not in OED; possible WOTY?
>> >
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > "Phishing" made it into the OED (recently?), but "spear phishing" has
>> > not yet arrived.
>> >
>> > UrbanDictionary has "The targeted version of phishing where hackers
>> > go after individuals as opposed to going after a large group by
>> > pretending to be a trusted corporation/company/group through some
>> > form of electronic communication" (2010).
>> >
>> > According to Google Web, may go back to 2003.  See
>> > http://idtheft.about.com/od/theftmethods/a/Spear_Phishing.htm,
>> > although I can't confirm the date from this page.  Certainly to 2005.
>> >
>> > What any of the 80 million may expect to be penetrated with by one of
>> > the Anthem hackers or their commerical clients.  A possible WOTY?
>> >
>> > Joel
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
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