spear phishing

A type of phishing attack that focuses on a single user or department within an organization, addressed from someone within the company in a position of trust and requesting information such as login IDs and passwords.  Spear phishing scams will often appear to be from a company's own human resources or technical support divisions and may ask employees to update their username and passwords. Once hackers get this data  they can gain entry into secured networks. Another type of spear phishing attack will ask users to click on a link, which deploys spyware that can thieve data.

Also see the All About Phishing page in the "Did You Know? section of Webopedia for more information, including examples, of phishing.

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