Question

Often an attacker crafts e-mail attacks containing malware designed to take advantage of the curiosity or even greed of the recipients. Imagine that the message body Amy saw on the e-mail from Davey had been "See our managers’ salaries and SSNs" instead of "Funniest joke you’ll see today." 1. Would it be ethical for Amy to open such a file? 2. If such an e-mail came in, what would be the best action to take?

Answer 1

1) The ethical act Amy should display is to open the Email since it came in through her personal inbox. However, further action should not be taken since ordinarily opening the mail will not disclose or corrupt her system either locally of her system on the server and web space.

2) If such email came in, the first action i will take is to open the mail then take a pause to read through the instruction because most scam or malware comes with an array of further instructions.

After carefully reading through, i will call up Davey to confirm if he sent such mail which answer will obviously be a No and in the case where i am unable to get a call through to Davey, i will immediately delete the mail from my inbox to avoid the mistake of clicking any embedded link within the mail.