Have you ever received an email from your “boss” asking you to share sensitive information? Or perhaps your “bank” urgently needed you to “verify your account details”? These emails may look official, but there’s a good chance that they’re nothing more than a scam.
This is known as spoofing, where hackers can hide their identity to fool you into giving them your personal information, clicking malicious links, or worse. So, let’s dive into what spoofing is, how it works, and, most importantly, how you can spot the spoof.
What is spoofing?
Spoofing is a type of cyberattack where a hacker will pretend to be someone else to gain access to your personal information. The hacker can appear to be a legitimate sender such as a bank, close friend, family member, and so forth. This attack often uses social engineering and manipulation to trick the victim.
Here are a few types of spoofing that can be used:
- Email spoofing: Using a fake email address to impersonate a legitimate sender.
- Caller ID spoofing: Masking a phone number to make it seem like a trusted contact or caller.
- SMS spoofing: Using a fake ID in text messages to masquerade as a legitimate company.
- Website spoofing: Creating fake websites which look like the legitimate websites.
- IP spoofing: Manipulating an IP address to perform an attack.
Email spoofing is the most common type of spoofing, so let’s look at how it works.
How email spoofing works
- An attacker creates a fake email which looks like a legitimate company or person.
- The attacker manipulates the email header. This will make the email sender look like it’s the real sender, but when you look closely, the email is from a fraudulent address.
- Social engineering tactics are used to trick you into clicking links, opening attachments, performing money transfers, or providing sensitive information.
- Now the attacker has access to your personal information.
Now that we have a basic understanding of spoofing, let’s look at a few ways that we can identify these attacks.
5 tips to spot the spoof
- Suspicious email addresses. You can hover over a sender’s email to view the actual email address. There will often be small differences in the email address to make it look like a legitimate company, or the email address could come from a generic domain that is easier to identify.
- Unusual links: Hover over the links as well. Check that the URL matches the company or sender to make sure it isn’t suspicious.
- Generic greetings. If an email or text message begins with “Dear Customer”, it could very well be a spoof.
- Urgent requests. If the email is requesting you to perform something immediately, take a moment to evaluate the request.
- Spelling and grammar mistakes. While this is less common, always check for any typos or strange phrasing within the message.
How to protect yourself from spoofing attacks
Let’s look at a few steps you can take to help protect yourself from spoofing:
- Don’t click the link. Don’t click links or open attachments from someone you are not familiar with.
- Use strong passwords. Ensure that your passwords are strong and complex, and don’t use the same password for multiple accounts.
- Use multifactor authentication. Always enable MFA wherever possible. This will add another layer of protection to your account.
- Don’t answer unknown numbers. If you don’t recognize the caller’s number, or aren’t expecting the call, don’t answer. Use caller ID apps to help identify scam calls.
- Verify first. If you’re dealing with sensitive information or transactions, rather verify the request using a secondary method first. For example, call the person directly to confirm if they have sent the request.
- Keep your software up to date. Update your software as regularly as possible. Updates generally include security patches to add or improve security features on your device.
There are many trending spoofing scams such as AI-powered voice spoofing and fake job offers from scammers. As long as you remember to follow these tips when you are unsure, you are more likely to prevent being spoofed. Be secure!
