Phishing is the act of attempting to acquire information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details (and sometimes, indirectly, money) by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in either an e-mail or phone call.  Phishing communication typically pretend to be from popular social websites (Facebook, Twitter) auction sites (ebay), or payment processors (paypal).

Phishing, like its namesake “fishing,” uses bait to “hook” the reader and get them to perform some type of action such as clicking on a link which will lead them to a malicious site.

Suspicious e-mails do have common characteristics: general greeting, bad grammar, threats requiring immediate action, and false e-mail and web addresses.  Read through the following signs of a suspicious e-mail and look at the example suspicious e-mails so that you will be able to identify them.

See: How to Detect a Phishing E-mail?