What is phishing?

The correct answer is D. A type of social engineering attack. Phishing is a social engineering attack (D) because it manipulates people psychologically - typically through deceptive emails, messages, or fake websites - to trick victims into revealing sensitive information like passwords or credit card numbers. It exploits human trust, not…

Threat Detection and Incident Response

Question

What is phishing?

Options

AA type of virus
BA type of malware that disguises itself as legitimate software
CA type of denial-of-service attack
DA type of social engineering attack

How the community answered

(55 responses)

A
2% (1)
B
4% (2)
D
95% (52)

Explanation

Phishing is a social engineering attack (D) because it manipulates people psychologically - typically through deceptive emails, messages, or fake websites - to trick victims into revealing sensitive information like passwords or credit card numbers. It exploits human trust, not technical vulnerabilities in software.

Why the distractors are wrong:

A (virus): A virus is self-replicating malicious code that spreads by attaching to files - phishing involves no such code.
B (malware disguised as legitimate software): That describes a Trojan horse, not phishing.
C (denial-of-service): DoS attacks flood systems to make them unavailable - phishing targets people, not infrastructure.

Memory tip: Think of the fishing analogy - a phisher casts a bait (fake email/site) hoping a person bites and hands over credentials. The "ph" spelling is a hacker culture convention. If the attack tricks a human rather than exploiting a system, it's social engineering.

Topics

#Social Engineering#Phishing#Threat Detection#User Security

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