ISC2 Systems Security Certified Practitioner (SSCP) Practice Question
During a quarterly phishing assessment, an employee forwards a suspicious internal "password expiry" message to the security team. The email claims accounts will be disabled within 24 hours, contains several grammatical mistakes, and provides a hyperlink that displays as https://intranet.example.com/ but actually points to https://support-examp1e.com/login when hovered. Which detail is the clearest sign the email is malicious?
The subject warns that the user's password will expire within 24 hours.
The hyperlink's visible text shows the corporate intranet domain but resolves to a different external domain when hovered.
The email's body contains several spelling and grammatical errors.
The most reliable indicator of a phishing attempt is a deceptive link whose visible text differs from its true destination. Hovering over the link reveals that it actually leads to a different domain, signalling a potential attempt to harvest credentials. While poor grammar, urgent deadlines, and generic sender labels are common red flags, they can also appear in legitimate messages. A mismatched hyperlink, however, directly demonstrates an intent to mislead recipients and is therefore the strongest evidence that the email is fraudulent.
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What is phishing and why is deceptive link behavior a clear indicator of it?
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What are other common signs of phishing emails, apart from deceptive links?
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ISC2 Systems Security Certified Practitioner (SSCP)
Security Concepts and Practices
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