What made you question the legitimate messages included in the quiz?

Threats today come in many forms. Phishing attacks are almost a daily occurrence and malicious software can hide in the most innocuous of places. Scare tactics, such as threats of monetary loss or imminent arrest for illegal activity abound. Often, the messages have a ring of truth. In the back of our mind the question, “what if?”, arises. For this exercise, you will have the opportunity to play the role of potential victim and of attacker. In each role, draw from the readings, other articles or academic resources and your prior experience to provide a detailed explanation of the steps that you would take in this role. Be sure to follow APA guidelines for citations and support your answers with citations.

Part A

Start by completing the Phishing quiz (Links to an external site.) (https://www.intradyn.com/phishing-quiz/ (Links to an external site.)). Capture the results page and include it as Appendix A of the submitted document. After you have completed the quiz, do some research on why phishing attacks are successful.

Once you have completed the quiz and your research, discuss the following:

How well did you do on the quiz?
What were some of the obvious indicators that a message was a phishing attempt?
What made you question the legitimate messages included in the quiz?
Reflect on your overall experience with the quiz. Reflect on the ease or difficulty you had in determining if the examples were real or phishing attempts. Using your research, discuss why phishing attacks are successful today and the key things that users should be aware of when reading or reacting to any email message.

Part B

Now play the role of an attacker. How can you construct a message that looks trustworthy? What elements are important to the message to make it appear authentic? Using your research, what are important elements in a phishing message that would allow the message to be successful?

Write a 2 to 3 page paper that addresses the concerns that have been identified. Support the ideas and suggestions with citations. The paper should also use APA style and appropriate citations.

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