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What Is Email Spoofing and How Can Anyone Stop Attackers From Posing as You?

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Ariya Rathi

What is email spoofing, how does it work, and why is it so dangerous to your company? We’ll explain everything you need to defend your company and your customers.

Email Spoofing: What Is It?

Email spoofing is when a fraudster forges an email headers ‘From’ address to make it appear as if it was sent by someone else. If the victim replies, the reply will go to the source of the spoofed email, which can be used to trick the victim into disclosing confidential information or sending money.

In the email world, knowing who you received a message from is as important as knowing what they said. Email spoofing is when a fraudster forges an email headers ‘From’ address to make it appear as if it was sent by someone else, usually a high-level executive. The rogue email then steals sensitive information that may have otherwise been protected by internal security protocols or sent using secure webmail that would have prevented their access. Email spoofing is a form of identity deception that has been used in phishing and spam attacks by cybercriminals. Cybercriminals use spoofed emails to try to steal sensitive information or login credentials from users they don't know, which they do with embedded links leading to phishing sites.

Email spoofing is a form of identity deception and one category of this attack is email phishing. An electronic mail phishing scam is an attempt to trick someone into surrendering sensitive information or clicking on a malicious link in the guise of an invoice, statement or receipt. Email spoofing can enable attackers to trick unsuspecting people into revealing valuable personal data. Business email spoofing (business email compromise (BEC)) refers to an attack in which the attacker sends an email with a header that appears to be from a company executive. The sender address is often made to look like the address of an existing employee in the company. Look-alike domains and even spoofed sender names and email addresses, such as [email protected] may be used in the attack.

How Email Spoofing Works

Email spoofing is the use of fake email addresses and sender identities to deceive and defraud people. Although email spoofing has been around since email was invented, it's becoming a trendy way for fraudsters to steal money from people these days. This article will explain exactly how this happens, and how you can protect yourself. If you have ever been sent an email from someone who claimed to be from a company, but the email contained typos and didn’t sound quite right, chances are they were spoofing their email address. An email message commonly called a "phishing" scam spoofs the company's or individual's email to make it appear that the message comes from an official source. This message asks for personal information, such as passwords, bank account numbers, Social Security numbers, mother's maiden names (used for password security questions), etc. Usually the goal is to get you to provide credit card information over the phone or through email.

Also included are suggestions on what you can do if you receive one of these emails to protect yourself against this type of scam. Email spoofing is a form of identity deception in which a malicious party assumes another individual’s email address and uses it in a fraudulent manner. Spoofing allows criminals to exploit privacy vulnerabilities in email systems, and can be used in phishing scams to infect users with malware, also known as a “phishing attack.”

Effects of Email Spoofing

  • Financial
  • Reputational
  • Security

How to Protect Against Spoofing Attacks

Email fraud is one of the most serious fraud threats facing organizations today. But with the right tools and processes, fraudsters can be detected and contained. This whitepaper examines how fraudsters spoof identities to launch fraud attacks by examining common fraud scenarios that use spoofing techniques; the best ways to set up fraud filters that prevent fraud; and how you can shrink your fraud losses by preventing fraud before it happens. Protecting against spoofing requires a multi-pronged approach. While users need to follow the usual best practices for email security, your business also needs to have policies in place to cover both individuals and corporate support accounts.

Inbound Spoofing Attacks

The best defense against spoofed emails that target your company is to stop them from ever reaching employees in the first place.

  • Traditional email security controls
  • Identity-based protections
  • Employee training and reporting

 

Outbound Email Impersonation

There are standard email authentication protocols that can help protect companies and their employees from having their email spoofed in attacks against customers and the general public.

  • Sender Policy Framework (SPF)
  • DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM)
  • Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC)

 

Automated DMARC deployment tools such as EmailAuth Brand Protection™ enable enterprises to accelerate the often cumbersome and costly process of deploying DMARC across large email ecosystems spanning thousands of domains by automating the entire process. Our solution also helps secure defensive domains and proactively identifies attacks from lookalike domains and cloud platforms, supporting rapid remediation with takedown vendors.

 

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Ariya Rathi
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