What Is Phishing?

Phishing is an attempt to steal credentials, payment information, or account access by impersonating a trusted brand, person, or system — usually through a link sent by email, SMS, chat, or social media.

The link typically leads to a fake login page, a fraudulent payment form, or a page designed to install malware. Because the message looks like it came from a bank, employer, or well-known service, victims are manipulated into trusting it before they have a chance to verify it.

Traditional defenses rely on blacklists of domains and URLs that have already been reported as malicious. That works only after a phishing page has been discovered — attackers routinely register new, previously unseen domains specifically to stay ahead of these lists.

This is why phishing remains one of the most common starting points for fraud and account takeover: the window between a new phishing URL going live and it being blacklisted is exactly when most victims click it.

DefenceNet is designed to evaluate a URL’s structure, domain characteristics, and brand-related signals directly — rather than depending solely on whether that URL has already appeared in a known blacklist. This allows it to flag suspicious destinations even when they have not been seen before.

DefenceNet is delivered through APIs, SDKs, and mobile and browser integrations, so phishing checks can run at the point a link is received — before a customer or employee reaches the fraudulent page. No security system can guarantee detection of every phishing attempt, so production performance should always be validated against an organization’s own traffic.