Question

You have been asked to create a spear phishing email that will entice the faculty and staff of the Trent University Forensics Department into visiting your website, which is configured to automatically install malware on their computers. What planning would you do prior to sending the email? Write the contents of the email. Why do you think that this would be an effective phishing attack?

Answer 1

Phising : It is a type of social engineering attack often used to steal user data, including login credentials and credit card numbers and sensitive information without their knowledge that it is being extarcted from them. There are different types of phising techniques. We are going to dicuss one of them.

Spear phising : It is type of phising in which the attacker already knew some information about the target. It gives much possiblity the target may fall for the trap. These could be gleaned from a previous phishing attempt, a breached account, or anywhere else they might be able to find out personal information.

Details to be known prior to sending email : In this case , one need to know the staff email's , principal's mail. Bank person's information ( name, mail id, phone number) It is just a sample, one can get much information about for successful perpetration.

Plan : we will be using principal's mail to send a malware in form of an attachment. We will circulate it with faculty and staff. As we are targeting a group we need to be generic in selection of what is to be sent. Here we are stating it as a new bank account is being offered for all the staff members of the university. Please update the details necessary for it.

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Mail

From : Principal's mail id

To : Staff' mail id's

Sub :New Bank Account for the staff

Content :

Bank name : xxx

Contact person : xxxxxx

Position : xxxx

Mail : xxxxx

A warm regard to all the staff. On occasion of university's anniversary , we are being offered an account in reputed bank. Please help provide required detail's from the attachment. Please also visit their website for detailed plan's and revert to them.

link : xxxxxxxxx

Regards,

Principal's Name

Trent University

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I think this would be effective as the mail is being sent from principal's mail address, everyone will think it as legitimate. As we mentioned point of contact from the reputed bank , they may even search and confirm that it is not fake identity. Also we sent an attachment (Malware in form of trojan) which requires details.