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Diploma in Higher Education Studies

Phishing: spotting fake messages

HES 214 · Digital World — Week 7 of 16

CourseHES 214
Week7 of 16
SemesterII
TutorOnline in the course chat

This week’s topics

Phishing: spotting fake messages

  1. Warning signs in emails and texts
  2. What to do with a suspicious message

What you will be able to do

  • 2.2 Identify signs of phishing and social engineering.

Activity

Spot the fakes in a set of real and phishing emails.

Study materials

Further resources

  • NCSC: Phishing attacks – defending your organisation · PDF · UK NCSC, how to spot and report phishing e-mails and texts; 9 pp. · for registered students
  • Foundations of Information Systems, 5.2: Security Threats · PDF · OpenStax Foundations of Information Systems (2025), 5.2 on phishing and other common threats, pp. 172–176 · for registered students
  • Why phishing works · Open-access article · Dhamija et al. (2006), CHI 2006, ACM. User study showing why people fall for phishing websites. · for registered students
  • The persuasion and security awareness experiment: reducing the success of social engineer… · Open-access article · Bullée et al. (2015), Journal of Experimental Criminology. Experiment showing how awareness training reduces scam success. · for registered students
Materials marked “for registered students” open in the student portal, which is set up as soon as you receive final acceptance.
Week 6Midterm
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Course plan
  • Week 1: The internet and the World Wide Web
  • Week 2: Clients and servers
  • Week 3: LANs and WANs
  • Week 4: How data travels across the internet
  • Week 5: Strong passwords and password managers
  • Week 6: Two-factor authentication
  • Week 7: Phishing: spotting fake messages
  • Midterm: Midterm evaluation
  • Week 9: Social engineering and online scams
  • Week 10: Cloud computing
  • Week 11: Artificial intelligence in everyday life
  • Week 12: The Internet of Things and smart devices
  • Week 13: Technology and society
  • Week 14: Technology and the environment
  • Week 15: Review and coursework completion
  • Final: Final assessment and submission
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