This article provides you with information on how to prevent Spoofing of your email account or your contact list.
What is Email Spoofing?
Email spoofing is the most common form of online spoofing. Similar to phishing, spoofers send out emails to multiple addresses and use official logos and header images to falsely introduce themselves as representatives of banks, companies, and known contacts. The emails they send include links to malicious or otherwise fraudulent websites and attachments infected with malicious software.
Spoofing is a fraudulent act in where emails from an unknown source are disguised as being from a source that is known to and trusted by the recipient. A spoofing attack occurs when a person (referred to as a spoofer) pretends to be someone else in order to trick their target into sharing their personal data or performing some action on behalf of the spoofer. The spoofer will often take time and make an effort to build trust with their target, thus ensuring that they will share their sensitive data more easily.
How to Prevent a Spoofing Attack
While you can’t prevent others from trying to impersonate known contacts to gain access to your personal information, there are things that you can do to avoid becoming a victim of spoofers.
As a rule, a combination of safe browsing habits and the best antivirus software is the only surefire way to prevent hackers from taking control of your data and your computer.
- Your sensitive information – including passwords, credit card info should only be shared via secure forms on encrypted websites that use HTTPS.
- If anyone sends you an email asking for personal information, don’t respond to them.
- Check the sender address of any suspicious-looking email you receive before clicking on links or downloading attachments contained in it.
- If any of the websites you normally visit are acting differently, don’t click on any links or fill out any forms on them.
Hackers often use different spoofing techniques to install malware on your computer, which is why you need to use the best antivirus software to protect your files. A good antivirus program will provide real-time protection against viruses, worms, Trojans, and all other types of malicious software. To ensure optimal security, some of these programs will alert you whenever you try to access a suspicious website.