  The history of phishing traces back in important ways to the mid-1990s when
hacking software facilitated the mass targeting of people in password stealing
scams on America Online (AOL). The first of these software programs was mine,
called AOHell, and it was where the word phishing was coined. The software
provided an automated password and credit card-stealing mechanism starting in
January 1995. Though the practice of tricking users in order to steal passwords
or information possibly goes back to the earliest days of computer networking,
AOHell's phishing system was the first automated tool made publicly available
for this purpose. The program influenced the creation of many other automated
phishing systems that were made over a number of years. These tools were
available to amateurs who used them to engage in a countless number of phishing
attacks. By the later part of the decade, the activity moved from AOL to other
networks and eventually grew to involve professional criminals on the internet.
What began as a scheme by rebellious teenagers to steal passwords evolved into
one of the top computer security threats affecting people, corporations, and
governments.
