You are a cybersecurity analyst at a large corporation. You notice that a particular employee has been receiving emails from an unknown sender who claims to be a new colleague from a different department.

The sender has been engaging in friendly conversation, asking about the employee's role, and subtly inquiring about certain company processes. Recently, the sender asked the employee to open an attachment that supposedly contains a funny meme.

What phase of the social engineering process does this scenario represent and what should be your immediate action?

answer

Research phase $-$ Inform the employee about the potential threat and advise them to stop communication.

None of the above $-$ This is a normal interaction and no action is required.

Development phase $-$ Report the incident to the IT department for further investigation.

Exploitation phase $-$ Isolate the employee's system and conduct a thorough security scan.