What term means pretending to be an authorized user to gain access?

• A. Masquerading
• B. MitM
• C. MAC Address
• D. Multicast

Answer: (A)

Masquerading is a form of impersonation in authentication—the attacker pretends to be a legitimate user to gain access by presenting stolen or forged credentials so the system accepts them as if they were the real user. This target is the trust placed in user identities and the authentication process, making it the correct term for gaining access by pretending to be someone authorized. In contrast, a man-in-the-middle attack focuses on intercepting or manipulating communications between parties rather than taking over a user’s identity to log in. A MAC address is simply a hardware identifier used at the data-link layer and isn’t about user impersonation, while multicast refers to delivering data to multiple destinations, not authentication. So masquerading best describes the act of pretending to be an authorized user to gain access.