What is Email Spoofing?

Sending an email from an email address that does not belong to the sender is generally referred to as email spoofing or email impersonation. It involves creating a forged or fake email header that makes the email appear to have been sent from a different email address than the actual sender’s address.

This is typically done with the intention of deceiving the recipient, often for malicious purposes such as phishing, scamming, or spreading malware.

The danger of email spoofing lies in its ability to fool recipients into believing that the email is legitimate. Hackers often use spoofing to impersonate trusted sources, such as banks, government agencies, or well-known companies, to trick people into divulging personal or financial information. In some cases, they may also include links or attachments that, when clicked, can install malware on the recipient’s device.

How could this affect your business?

Spoofing can have several negative effects on your business. Here are some examples:

Reputation damage: When criminals impersonate your business domain, they may send emails that appear to be from your legitimate business to customers, partners, or employees. If these emails contain malicious content, such as phishing links or malware attachments, it can damage the reputation of your business and erode trust with recipients. This can lead to financial loss, loss of business opportunities, and damage to your brand’s reputation.

Financial loss: Email spoofing can be used to conduct various types of financial fraud, such as CEO fraud or business email compromise (BEC). In these types of attacks, criminals impersonate high-ranking executives or trusted employees to request fraudulent wire transfers, invoice payments, or other financial transactions. If successful, these attacks can result in significant financial losses for your business.

Legal and regulatory issues: Spoofed emails can also lead to legal and regulatory issues. For example, if your business email account is used to send fraudulent emails that result in financial losses for recipients, the affected parties may pursue legal action against your business. Additionally, certain industries and jurisdictions have regulations and compliance requirements related to email security and privacy, and businesses that fail to adequately protect their email domain may face fines, penalties, or legal liabilities.

Protect your business with DMARC.

While DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) and SPF (Sender Policy Framework) are email authentication methods that can help prevent email spoofing, they are not foolproof and may not be sufficient on their own to stop determined criminals from abusing a business domain.

DKIM involves adding a digital signature to outgoing emails to verify their authenticity, while SPF allows domain owners to specify which mail servers are authorized to send email on their behalf. However, these methods do not prevent someone from creating a fake email account that looks like it belongs to a legitimate business or from using a compromised email account to send spoofed emails.

To enhance email security and protect against email spoofing, we’d suggest that your business implement additional measures, such as DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance), which is an email authentication protocol that builds upon DKIM and SPF to provide more robust email authentication and reporting capabilities.

Is your business at risk?