Spear phishing attempt is a carefully crafted personalized email that is usually sent with an attachment or requests a response. The fraudster then tries to entice the recipient to open the infected attachment or respond with personal information.

Spear phishing attacks often may lead to stealing information, fraudulently wire money, or even encrypt university assets and hold them hostage. 

Please see an example of a crafted and much more believable phishing email to trick the recipients of the email. 

The email arrives with what seems to be a chain of messages with a vendor and it is designed to entice the recipient to open the infected attachment. Once the attachment has been opened, the fraudster can get a foothold of their machine to start their malicious activity.