Setting up a fraudulent website that contains copies of pages from a legitimate website in order to capture confidential information from users. By hacking into the Internet's DNS servers and changing IP addresses, users are automatically redirected to the bogus site, at least for some period of time until the DNS records can be restored. See
DNS hijacking.
For example, if a bank's DNS were changed, users could be redirected to a website that looks familiar. The bogus site could collect usernames and passwords or using some pretense request additional financial information. Unlike phishing schemes that use a link in an email message to go to the phony site, pharming is more natural. Users are purposefully going to a familiar site.
Check the Address Line
The only way to avoid being suckered in is to always check the address line in the browser. Most people never do this and may not even be familiar with the valid URL of the site they go to all the time because they just click a bookmark. For example, if
mybank.com were switched to
mybnk.com, only an extremely observant user would notice and question this discrepancy. See
phishing.