In which of the following malicious hacking steps does email tracking come under?

Reconnaissance is the first phase of the ethical hacking methodology and involves collecting information about the target without direct interaction; email tracking falls here because it reveals metadata like the target's IP address, mail client, operating system, and read timestamps without alerting the target.

Gaining access involves actively exploiting a discovered vulnerability to compromise a system, not passively collecting intelligence about a user.

Maintaining access refers to post-exploitation techniques such as installing backdoors or rootkits to preserve unauthorized entry, which occurs after a system has already been compromised.

Scanning is an active phase that involves probing network infrastructure for open ports, live hosts, and services using tools like nmap, not gathering behavioral data through email.