An employee finds a USB drive labeled “Employee Salary Info 2024” and plugs it into...

This scenario represents a classic baiting attack, a social engineering technique explicitly described in CEH v13 Social Engineering. In baiting, attackers exploit human curiosity or greed by leaving behind a malicious physical device—most commonly a USB drive—with an enticing label. When the victim plugs the device into a system, malware is automatically executed, leading to compromise.

Option A precisely captures this behavior. The label “Employee Salary Info 2024” is intentionally designed to entice the victim into interacting with the device. CEH v13 highlights USB baiting as particularly dangerous because it bypasses technical controls and relies solely on human behavior.

Option B describes pretexting, which involves impersonation. Option C refers to dumpster diving. Option D describes tailgating, a physical access attack. None of these match the USB-based lure described.

CEH v13 emphasizes that baiting attacks are highly effective in corporate environments and recommends strong security awareness training and disabling USB autorun features as mitigation.