by There’s nothing funny about email spoofing, you might think to avoid email phishing attacks but what about when the message comes from a trusted company or friend? In this article, we are going to see what is email spoofing and how can we prevent email spoofing.
Email spoofing refers to the forgery of an email header so that the message appears to have originated from somewhere other than the actual source a spoofed email might claim it’s from an online retailer you ordered clothes from or a co-worker when in reality it’s from a hacker or an infected computer.
What is Email Spoofing?
Email spoofing is where scammers create an email to make it look like the message is from a legitimate sender who you know and would usually respond to an email from a colleague asking for a wire transfer for example email spoofing is a popular choice among cybercriminals because the information they need is often freely available online.
All they need to get started is your name from there they can track down your social media accounts and find anything from contact details to information on your coworkers, visit the cisco website for more information.
Remember always double-check how the sender’s email address is spelled if it doesn’t look right tell someone and put in place policies like always following up a request for a wire transfer with a phone call to verify it.
The goal of email spoofing is to get recipients to open and even respond to a solicitation while many email spoofs are easy to spot with impersonal greetings misspelled URLs or fear-inducing messages the convincing and malicious varieties can cause serious problems if they effectively trick a recipient.
How to Stop Email Spoofing?
Phishing and email spoofing these are just a few terms used to describe some of the most common cyber attacks often used to steal user-sensitive data as well as to compromise the financial activity of many businesses cyber security is the array of measures you take to protect yourself from unauthorized access to your information systems and is becoming increasingly important today as year upon year cyber-attacks are occurring at an alarming rate across the globe especially illegal transactions in which scammers manage to infiltrate legitimate email
Also Read: Install and integrate DKIM with OpenDKIM
threads between people and use highly customized phishing techniques in order to get access to business invoices and transfer any amount of money to their bank account whenever you receive an email from one of your customer’s suppliers or creditors informing you that the bank details for the settlement of future invoices should be changed
it’s very important to follow these simple tips before sending your own money to the wrong person number one always verify the email senders by checking its domain name making sure the information that is hit are correct it can happen in fact to receive an email that may appear to be from a real sender but in reality, it’s hiding a different email address.
To prevent email spoofing, you should integrate DKIM, SPF, and DMARC records into your domain.
What are DKIM and SPF Records?
DKIM stands for DomainKeys Identified Mail which helps to prevent email spam and improves email delivery in different ways. It checks and verifies whether the messages sent are associated with the correct domain or not.
DKIM is a DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) signature protocol. It is an open standard that allows a domain to digitally sign messages. DKIM is designed to provide high-level security and authentication for email messages, and it is widely used by enterprises and organizations around the world. In order to receive email from a domain, the receiver must first verify that the domain is not malicious.
To do this, the receiver performs a DKIM signature check. If the signature check passes, the receiver can then proceed to the email itself. DKIM provides two primary benefits:
1. It provides high-level security for email messages by preventing unauthorized parties from tampering with the message and changing its content.
2. It provides authentication for email messages by verifying that the message was sent by an authorized party. In order to receive email from a domain, the receiver must first verify that the domain is not malicious. To do this, the receiver performs a DKIM signature check. If the signature check passes, the receiver can then proceed to the email itself. DKIM provides two primary benefits:
SPF stands for Sender Policy Framework which verifies whether the emails coming from authorized servers or not, if emails are not coming from authorized servers then they will be considered spam emails.
The Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is a set of best practices for email sending. It was developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in 2003 to help organizations determine which emails are likely to be opened and which ones should be filtered out.
SPF is composed of four principles:
1. Maintain a diverse set of addresses (e.g., your company name, a personal email address, and a business email address).
2. Use unique email addresses for each organization (e.g., company [email protected], personal [email protected], and business [email protected]).
3. Use different email servers for each organization (e.g., company [email protected], personal [email protected], and business [email protected]).
4. Use different domains for each organization (e.g., company [email protected], personal [email protected], and business [email protected]).
5. Use different email delivery methods for each organization (e.g., company [email protected], personal [email protected], and business [email protected]).
6. Maintain a high degree of subjectivity in selecting the messages to send (e.g., use only those messages that are relevant to your organization).
7. Be diligent about evaluating the effectiveness of your email sending efforts.
Conclusion
Email spoofing is a very common cyber threat and can be easily prevented with the right anti-spoofing software.
The best way to prevent email spoofing is to use a DKIM/SPF combination of records and make sure that emails come from authorized servers.
If you’re still not convinced then here are some more tips on how to avoid email spoofing: always double-check how the sender’s email address is spelled if it doesn’t look right tell someone and put in place policies like always following up a request for a wire transfer with a phone call to verify it.
Additionally, make sure you have an internet connection when sending emails, especially if you receive an email from someone you don’t know, check their IP address or domain name for any suspicious activity that may indicate they are trying to hack into your system or steal your personal information.
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