Q.The school offers wireless facility (wifi) to the Computer Science students of Class XI. For communication, the network security staff of the school have a registered URL schoolwifi.edu. On 17 September 2017, the following email was mass distributed to all the Computer Science students of Class XI. The email claimed that the password of the students was about to expire. Instructions were given to go to URL to renew their password within 24 hours. [Email shown in the textbook — Subject: “Your Password will expire in 1 day”, to me. Body: “Dear Students, This email is meant to inform you that your SchoolWifi network password will expire in 24 hours. Please follow the link below to update your password. schoolwifii.edu/updatepassword Thank you Network security staff”]

Compare the email against the school's genuine details and it unravels:

• a) Yes — the URL is forged. The registered domain is schoolwifi.edu, but the email's link is schoolwifii.edu (double "i") — a look-alike domain. Add the pressure tactics (24-hour deadline) and generic greeting: classic phishing marks.
• b) The link opens a fake password-update page mimicking the school's; whatever password a student types is captured by the attacker, who then controls the student's wifi/network account (and any account reusing that password). …

The concept (phishing and identity theft). Phishing emails impersonate a trusted authority, invent urgency, and route victims to a look-alike URL where credentials are harvested. The forged domain is usually one character away from the real one — exactly what we see here.

a) Do you find any discrepancy in this email?

Yes, several:

• The URL is wrong: the school's registered domain is schoolwifi.edu, but the email says schoolwifii.edu — an extra "i". A one-letter look-alike domain is the signature of phishing.
• Manufactured urgency: "expires in 24 hours" pressures students to act before thinking.
• Generic, unverifiable sender: addressed to "Dear Students" from unnamed "Network security staff", mass-mailed to everyone at once.

b) What will happen if the student clicks the given URL?

The link opens a counterfeit page designed to look like the school's password-update portal. When the student enters the current password (and perhaps a "new" one), those credentials go straight to the attacker. The attacker can then log into the student's school wifi/network account, misuse it in the student's name, and try the same password on the student's other accounts (many people reuse passwords). Malicious pages may also attempt to install malware.

c) Is the email an example of cyber crime? If yes, which type? …