Read the passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 7...

Read the passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 7 to 16.

        Invoice fraud thrives where routine trust lives. Criminals compromise or convincingly impersonate a supplier’s email, then substitute bank coordinates on familiar invoices; dutiful customers, presuming continuity, remit funds into mule accounts. [I] Because confirmations are rarely sought via an independent channel, the deception can persist across billing cycles, multiplying losses. If due diligence is skipped, restitution is unlikely, as payments are laundered rapidly and beneficial ownership is obscured once money is dispersed through nested accounts.

        Phishing arrives as persuasive ordinariness: polished logos, urgent tones, and spurious login portals that harvest credentials or plant malware. Messages purporting to be banks, parcel couriers, or tax offices exploit trust heuristics and fatigue. They often weaponise attachments and shortened links to obfuscate destinations. [II] Should a victim comply, accounts may be seized, secondary authentication reset, and identity fragments collated for later abuse. Even wary users can be caught if they rush; verification rituals – hovering, cross-checking domains, calling back – work precisely because they slow decisions.

        Remote-access ruses enlist false authority: a “technician” rings to remediate a fabricated error, then shepherds the target toward screen-sharing tools. If a caller demands immediate access to “fix” an issue you did not report, the safest course is to refuse and terminate the contact. Once privileged control is granted, keystrokes, wallets, and backups become searchable, while coercive follow-ups – sometimes invoking police or tax threats – extract further payment. [III] Where systems are encrypted or settings sabotaged, recovery is costly, and shame often delays reporting.

        Romance impostors and get-rich evangelists cultivate intimacy, then migrate off public platforms to “safer” spaces. On these channels, emotional reciprocity and time-pressure converge: gifts or crypto “opportunities” are urged as proofs of commitment, allegedly fleeting. [IV] Profiles are stolen or fabricated; windfalls are promised, withdrawals “pending”. If skepticism surfaces, manipulation escalates – gaslighting, isolation, sometimes menacing hints – until the target either pays or blocks. Detachment tactics work: slow the cadence, verify images, and insist on independent financial advice before any transfer.

(Adapted from https://www.cyber.gov.au/learn-basics/watch-out-threats/types-scams)

Question 7. The word spurious in paragraph 2 mostly means ______.

A. loosely credible                                        B. openly persuasive

C. deceptively fake                                        D. mildly authentic