A quick Google search can give you the definition of email spoofing, that is - Manipulating email headers to mimic the sender’s address and make people think they’re communicating with someone they know. This is the most simple that one can give for email spoofing. If you are looking for a comprehensive definition ( if you are ready for it), I can give you one too. Email Spoofing is a tactic that is used in several spam and other types of attacks to take advantage of the user. Often these are sent with addresses that resemble the original sender that users might be familiar with. Unless inspected closely and carefully, people may get a false sense of security. In the usual scenarios, the receiver might trust it. Therefore, malicious links might be clicked with ease, hence losing sensitive content and data or even corporate secrets.
One of the prime reasons why spoofing is prevalent as it is today is because of the SMTP protocol that lacks numerous built - in methods to verify header authenticity. When an email is sent to the user, hackers can easily manipulate the header information without any trigger to the email servers. This can disrupt big and small businesses alike. When it comes to startups, reputational damages, as well as data breaches, can become a huge headache that might not be cured with aspirins.
How Dangerous Can They Really Be?
Inconvenience, destruction and disruption. Even the behemoths like Apple, Sony, and Microsoft is not immune to email attacks. When companies make use of Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace ( like most of them do ), it could prove to be fatal for them in the long run if they do not devise additional threat securities.
Let us check what are the ways through which spammers can impede your establishment:
Reputation Damage - If news like this goes beyond the four walls of your office, then it's gonna be pretty fatal, not just in data breach but also in reputational issues. On the other hand, if customers receive spoof emails that act as legitimate communication from your website, then a question arises about the legitimacy of your establishment, too.
Disruption to Daily Operations - Drain of resources is a big hurdle when scammers breach your protocols to steal your data; this can take a lot of follow-ups to retrieve what's been stolen, thus diverting attention from daily drivers to unwarranted security threats.
Misinformation - Spoofing attacks can easily spread false narratives and misinformation, as well as propaganda through email spoofing. Fake promotions might lead to reputational damages and repercussions.
Business Email Compromise - The prime target of email spoofing might be corporate offices. With regard to the key aim, scammers will deceive the employees into disorderly conduct like transferring confidential information to make payment authorizations. Statistically, every year, a whopping 2.2 billion dollars are being stolen from companies all over the globe.
Vola! Now we know how email spoofing affects business establishments and individuals. Next, let us delve into the differences between spoofing and phishing.
Phishing vs Spoofing
Yep! You may have the impression that spoofing and phishing are both the same. In reality, they are up to some point, but when looking through a magnifier, they will show their true colors.
- Phishing primarily targets the stealing of information, while spoofing is fundamentally an impersonation of one's identity to do whatever is needed.
- Phishing, in its absolute sense, is highly scammy! Whereas its younger sibling is fraudulent mainly because it immittes the sender's email address or numbers.
- Phishing attacks often include the use of fake websites and data portals, while spoofed emails can be a part of the phishing attacks that are used to steal security and user information.
We know it's quite confusing to grasp first, but the magic is in the details. Phishing might grab user details to scam people into transferring money or assets, while these hackers might use email spoofing as a tool to obtain this.
Email Forging By Cybercriminals What To Look Out For?
Even though companies efficiently try to spend a part of their financial budget to skip through cyber security breaches, cybercriminals might find a variety of ways to chip in. Here are the ways through which hackers try to spoof users.
Check On The Display Name
Constructing the sender’s display name by not altering the existing email address. To be clear, this is pretty easy to do; anybody can change their display name to anything without the underlying email address being changed. You might have come face to face with these situations in your daily lives.
Legit Domains
Fake names can easily bypass the spam protection filter of the email program. In order to avoid any future issues, the best approach will be to double-check the sender's email address or the implementation of modern technological firewalls and security measures.
Spoofers use various techniques beyond just stealing credentials. One common technique is to use a legitimate email address in the "Sender" field but to modify both the displayed name and address through SMTP servers that allow for manual specification of "To" and "From" addresses. This simple manipulation makes the email look much more authentic. The lack of robust domain verification protocols worsens the situation, especially for organizations with weak defenses against cyber threats.
Domain Similarity
Even if the company's domain is protected, spammers can resort to creating lookalike domains. Lookalike domains closely resemble legitimate ones using a combination of letters and numbers. For instance, how a valid domain like "@company.com" can be spoofed:
Changing the TLD: " @company.co
Character swapping: "@c0mpany.com" (replacing an "o" with a "0")
Adding a Character: "@coompany.com" (adding an extra "o")
Replacing a Character: "@compny.com" (dropping the letter "a")
An unsuspecting recipient can easily miss these minor variations due to the frantic environment within which employees and even some CEOs read their emails not paying too much attention to details. A missing "m" or "i" of a very long domain can easily get lost in such haste.
How To Stay Away From Email Spoofing And Mitigative Measures
Anti-spoofing techs are immensely important for establishments that depend on emails for primary communications.
SPF - Sender Policy Framework (SPF) permits domain owners to authorize some IP addresses to send their domain's emails. Using SPF records in DNS configurations, domain owners make an approved list of sending origins. When an email is delivered to an account, the mail server will validate whether the IP address is included in the SPF record of the sending domain or not. If it's found, then it will indicate a legitimate email. This protocol is commonly used to combat email spoofing by verifying the sender's IP address. However, SPF has limitations: it only authenticates the sending domain and does not examine the email's content.
DMARC - This feature prohibits phishing and domain impersonation while making the authentication of emails strict under policies. DMARC gives more power to control email authorization to domain owners, building on top of SPF and DKIM, which is DomainKeys Identified Mail. When an email comes in, the receiving server asks for a DMARC policy from the sender's domain. Whenever a message fails SPF or DKIM alignment-that is, its "from" address is not being authenticated-it is a failure by DMARC to authenticate this message, usually resulting in rejection. That is, no valid email ends up directly in the inbox.
Conclusion
The final question is, can you eliminate email spoofing by decking the methods mentioned above? The strength lies in the ability of your employees to stay aware of the various facets of email spoofing. Educating/training your employees is the key to better security in cyberspace.
A training session for all existing and [upcoming employees is necessary to avoid scammers, not just email spoofing and phishing but also various other cyber threats. Proactive and preventive methods are better.