Part 1Tricking employees to reveal their passwords by pretending to be a legitimate member of a company is referred to as ________. Part 1
A. sniffing B. social engineering C. pharming D. IP spoofing E. phishing

Question

Part 1Tricking employees to reveal their passwords by pretending to be a legitimate member of a company is referred to as​ ________. Part 1
A. sniffing B. social engineering C. pharming D. IP spoofing E. phishing

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

Consider the scenario described: someone pretends to be a legitimate member of a company to coax employees into revealing their passwords. This is a classic example of a social technique aimed at manipulating people rather than exploiting technical vulnerabilities.

Option A: sniffing. Sniffing refers to intercepting network traffic to capture data being transmitted over a network. While related to security breaches, it targets information in transit rather than tricking a person into revealing credentials. This does not describe the social interaction aspect of the scenario.

Option B: social engineering. Social engineering specifically involves manipulating individuals into divulging confidential information, such as passwords, by impersonation, deception, or psychological manipulation. The given scenario matches this concept exactly, as the attacker pretends to be a legitimate insider to extract credentials.

Option C: pharming. Pharming is a cyberattack that redirects users from a legitimate website to a fraudulent one, often by compromising DNS or hosts files. It targets the user’s trust in a site’s address rather than coaxing someone to reveal a password directly through social means.

Option D: IP spoofing. IP spoofing involves forging the source IP address in network packets to masquerade as another system. It is a technical tactic used to hide identity or bypass access controls, not a method for eliciting password information through interpersonal deception.

Option E: phishing. Phishing uses fraudulent communications, typically emails or messages, to trick recipients into revealing sensitive data or visiting malicious sites. While closely related to social engineering, phishing focuses on impersonated communications rather than the broader interpersonal deception implied by pretending to be a legitimate internal member; however, phishing is a form of social engineering. In many classifications, phishing is considered a subtype of social engineering.

In summary, the scenario centers on deceiving a person into giving up a password through impersonation and manipulation, which is the essence of social engineering. Each of the other options describes a different type of attack or tactic that does not capture the specific social manipulation aspect at play in the prompt.

Quiz:MIS Chapter 8 Quiz

Part 1Tricking employees to reveal their passwords by pretending to be a legitimate member of a company is referred to as ________. Part 1 A. sniffing B. social engineering C. pharming D. IP spoofing E. phishing

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