Phishing has actually been around for over 10 years, starting with America
Online (AOL) back in 1995.There were programs (like AOHell) that automated
the process of phishing for accounts and credit card information. Back then
phishing wasn’t used as much in e-mail compared to Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
or the messaging alert system that AOL used.The phishers would imitate an
AOL administrator and tell the victim that there was a billing problem and they
needed them to renew their credit card and login information. Back then,
because personal computers in the home combined with Internet usage were a
fairly new experience, this method proved quite effectiv ...