The process of specialized transduction occurs in five sequential steps:

1. Attachment and penetration: The bacteriophage binds to the host bacterium's surface and injects its viral DNA.
2. Integration: The injected phage DNA is incorporated into the host bacterium's genome as a prophage.
3. Excision: Under induction, the phage DNA is excised from the bacterial chromosome along with a neighboring segment of bacterial DNA. The combined DNA is then packaged into new capsids.
4. Infection: The newly assembled viral particles, carrying both viral and host DNA segments, infect a new host cell.
5. Recombination: The injected DNA, including the bacterial segment from the previous host, is integrated into the new host cell's genome.