CAS-003 · Question #780
A human resources employee receives a call from an individual who is representing a background verification firm that is conducting a background check on a prospective candidate. The employee…
The correct answer is A. Pretexting. Pretexting is a social engineering technique in which the attacker fabricates a believable scenario (a 'pretext') to gain the target's trust and extract information or cooperation. Here, the threat actor impersonated a legitimate background verification firm - a plausible and…
Question
A human resources employee receives a call from an individual who is representing a background verification firm that is conducting a background check on a prospective candidate. The employee verifies the employment dates and title of the candidate. The caller then requests the employee's email address to complete the verification process. The employee receives an email containing a URL for completing the process. After clicking the link, the employee's workstation is infected with ransomware. Which of the following BEST describes the initial phone call made by the threat actor?
Options
- APretexting
- BPhishing
- CPivoting
- DReconnaissance
How the community answered
(33 responses)- A94% (31)
- C3% (1)
- D3% (1)
Explanation
Pretexting is a social engineering technique in which the attacker fabricates a believable scenario (a 'pretext') to gain the target's trust and extract information or cooperation. Here, the threat actor impersonated a legitimate background verification firm - a plausible and trusted context - to get the HR employee to provide an email address and then click a malicious link. Phishing (B) refers specifically to the deceptive email with the malicious URL, which was the second stage of the attack, not the initial phone call. Pivoting (C) is a network-based technique for moving laterally after initial compromise. Reconnaissance (D) is passive information gathering. The phone call was the pretexting step that enabled the subsequent phishing delivery.
Topics
Community Discussion
No community discussion yet for this question.