Which statement best describes the aim of phishing emails?

• A. Identity theft
• B. To steal passwords
• C. To trick you into revealing login information
• D. To deliver legitimate security updates

Answer: (C)

Phishing emails rely on social engineering to get you to reveal sensitive access details by pretending to be a trustworthy organization. The essential aim is to trick you into providing login information—such as your username, password, or security codes—so the attacker can access accounts or systems. This focus on eliciting credentials makes it the best description of what phishing attempts are trying to accomplish. While stealing passwords or identity theft can follow as outcomes, the key objective described here is to induce you to disclose login information. A message that pretends to deliver a legitimate security update would not fit, since legitimate updates don’t ask you to expose credentials and phishing emails try to impersonate legitimate communications to lure you in.