Gmail accounts of government officers have been reported to be attacked of late and interestingly the tracing of the attacks have led the investigators to internet addresses located in China.

It is being feared that these encroachments might have resulted in the leakage of considerable official and private information from the accounts of these officials. These incidents have been termed as “spear phishing” since the receivers of these threats have been limited to a certain circle of people by the use of email language which is specifically innovated to make it look trustworthy and lawful.

With such incidents becoming increasingly frequent, people now are using their brains and treating mails with messages appearing as if they came from their banks suspiciously and are favoring to verify it by logging in through their account via the bank’s official website instead of the deceitful mails.

Phishing is described a version of “social engineering” and happens usually when an outsider attempts to fool you into creating loopholes in your privacy and security giving away your passwords etc. It is said to be like any other con game with the only difference being that here it is security codes and not money or assets.