Pharming

Pharming is a cyberattack that redirects a website's traffic to a fraudulent site by installing malicious software on a victim's computer or by exploiting vulnerabilities in Domain Name System servers, without requiring any action by the victim. It is distinguished from phishing, which relies on deceiving a user into voluntarily handing over credentials such as usernames and passwords through fake emails or messages; pharming instead alters a victim's hosts file or exploits DNS weaknesses to silently reroute a browser to the fake site. Both techniques are increasingly used together to obtain information for online identity theft.