What is a Spoofing Attack?

Spoofing means to fake or pretend to be someone or something else in order to deceive someone. In the cyber space, spoofing is the act of pretending to be a legitimate entity in order to fool the target and gain their trust. Spoofing attacks leverage the trust between the victim and the entity the attacker pretends to be, to carry out malicious attacks against them. Spoofing attacks use a number of techniques to fool victims, some of the most common being: email address spoofing, voice and text spoofing, caller ID spoofing, and more. 

For example, a spoofing attack can occur when an attacker pretends to be a representative from a renowned bank or another financial institution, in order to get the victim to reveal sensitive financial information. Let’s say you receive a spoofed email from Bank of America about a suspicious transaction, it is bound to raise your concerns and push you to click on the link within the email. Once you’ve fallen for this trick, attackers can direct you to malicious webpages that capture your credentials or install malware into your computer.   

Spoofing attacks are usually a starting point for larger, more sophisticated attacks such as phishing, ransomware, business email compromise and much more. Spoofing attacks can have serious consequences both on individuals and businesses alike. If a well-known brand or company is impersonated by a malicious actor, this could lead to serious reputation damage and loss of customer trust. Moreover, if a spoofing campaign attacks a business network, it could affect the entire business operations, productivity of employees and result in data breaches and financial losses.

Types of Spoofing Attacks

Let’s take a look at the some of the most common types of spoofing attacks:

Email Spoofing

Email spoofing is an attack that involves masquerading as someone else in an email or communication. This can include spoofing the sender's email address, impersonating a company, or even copying the entire email composition of a legitimate user. Often, these emails will contain malicious content or links that will take users to websites they don't want to go to. 

IP Spoofing

IP spoofing is an attack where the attacker tricks a device into thinking that it is communicating with a server when in reality the attacker is actually communicating with another device. Once the attacker has compromised the victim's device, they can perform various attacks against the victim, such as stealing their data or redirecting their traffic to malicious websites. In short, IP spoofing is when someone exploits a mistake or weakness in your computer's IP address to pretend to be your computer on the internet.

Website Spoofing

Website spoofing is when attackers create a clone of a legitimate website. The purpose of website spoofing is to trick users into entering their personal information, like login credentials or credit card numbers, on the fake website. Once the attacker has this information, they can use it to commit fraud or identity theft. Website spoofing attacks are difficult to detect because the fake website looks identical to the real website.

CallerID Spoofing

Caller ID spoofing is a common scam where telemarketers use fake telephone numbers to make calls to your phone. The caller ID shows the number of a legitimate caller, making it difficult to know it's a scam call.

Some more types of spoofing: 

DNS Spoofing - Victims of DNS spoofing are directed to websites that are different from the one they’re trying to visit. A hacker can direct victims to phony websites that collect personal information or install malware on their computers by poisoning the DNS server listing for a target website and changing its associated IP address to one of their choosing. This method is also known as DNS cache poisoning. 

ARP Spoofing - By disguising their computer as a network user, hackers can enter a local area network (LAN) using this spoofing technique. ARP stands for Address Resolution Protocol and is a procedure that connects a constantly changing IP address to a fixed physical device. Hackers use this method to launch MITM attacks and steal personal information. 

SMS Spoofing - Hackers use SMS spoofing to send SMS messages that appear to come from another number. These messages usually contain malicious links or malware. 

GPS Spoofing - Mobile apps that use location information from a smartphone are susceptible to GPS Spoofing. GPS spoofing is when someone conceals their actual location by faking their GPS coordinates.

Facial Spoofing - Today, facial recognition is widely used as a method of authentication. Facial spoofing is a method of getting access to the target’s data by exploiting weaknesses in facial recognition implementation or even using printed photos to break into their systems.

The term spoofing often goes hand in hand with phishing, making it difficult to distinguish between the two. And while the two are related, they are not the same. Phishing is an attack method used by cybercriminals to obtain personal information such as passwords and credit card details from the target through fraudulent modes of communication. The fraudulent email may be crafted to look like it’s been sent from a reliable source but could include attachments or links that are laced with malware. On the other hand, spoofing is the practice of altering or disguising a message in order to create a false sense of trust or legitimacy. Phishing attacks almost always involve the use of a spoofed email address, however spoofing doesn't involve a phishing attack. 

Essentially, spoofing is done with the objective of identity theft while phishing is used to steal sensitive information from the target. Spoofing is also used to hide the true source of a communication or attack attempt.

Spoofing relies entirely on deception, so these attacks can be difficult to detect.  Here are a few things to look out for:

• Emails or communications that contain unsolicited requests such as a refund request form when you have never made a purchase or requested a refund from a merchant
• Requests for sensitive personal informationlike credit card numbers or bank account numbers without a reasonable explanation
• The URL doesn't match the website you're looking for
• Website doesn't have an HTTPS (secure) address and uses HTTP (not secure) instead
• Communications begining with 'Dear valued customer' or other generic greetings that are not personalized to you
• Messages with poor grammar, branding, design or spelling errors
• Unfamiliar or unnecessary attachments
  

Here are a few things to keep in mind to help prevent spoofing:

• Don't click on suspicious links or open unexpected email attachments
• Never use links in an email to go to a website or login to any accounts. Always open the website in a new tab or window
• Avoid HTTP websites at all costs
• Never communicate personal information over the phone or via email
• Always double check customer service phone numbers to ensure that they're not linked to scams
• Use a password manager to autofill passwords and store all passwords on your computer. Password managers also generate secure passwords for you, and don't autofill spoofed websites
• Use a spam filter to stop unwanted messages and filter spam emails
• Wherever possible, enable strong authentication methods such as multi-factor authentication
• Use the right cybersecurity tools that will detect threats and prevent your device from being compromised
• Report spoofing attacks to prevent future spoofing attempts
• Regularly monitor all your communication channels for signs of suspicious activity 
• Utilize penetration testing to evaluate your security posture and prepare for cyber attacks
• Verify suspicious requests in person