What Are Spoofing Attacks?

Spoofing is a concept that has existed for a long time. A spoofing attack is a fraudulent means by which one party extracts information from another party by assuming a false identity or pretending that they represent an institution that they do not. When they connect with a victim who believes the ruse, they can access personal information such as banking, credit card or social security numbers or other sensitive details that people use for protection.

Spoofing has a long history of telephonic activity, in which the victim is pressed to give out information because of a made-up time-sensitive issue. It is also widely used online in many forms, including facial spoofing, IP spoofing, email spoofing and extension spoofing, among others. Email spoofing, for instance, is a scenario in which a scammer capitalizes on the fact that email protocols do not necessarily have built-in authentification methods by sending out an email with a forged sender address. The recipient believes that a situation is unfolding with a trusted entity and willingly sends their information to rectify the situation, only to bear the burden of having contributed to its creation. 

Man-in-the-middle spoofing attacks are another means by which attackers disguise information to get information. In this scenario, the attacker is positioned between two entities that are communicating online and spoofing their addresses to each other. Through this duplicity, the two entities send their information to the attacker, rather than its intended destination. 

What Are Ways To Prevent Spoofing Attacks?

Many excellent techniques have been developed whose aim is to prevent spoofing attacks. Secure communication protocols encrypt data and verify the application or device with which you are engaging. Internet protocol security (IPSec) is the secure network protocol suite that allows for encrypted communication between two computers.

Spoofing detection software can detect spoofing attacks. This is software, for instance, that can identify a threat and then enables a network administrator to cut the internet connection to any device that is part of a local area network. An ARP monitor ensures that links are up and accurate by sending ARP packets to different targets, and then proceeding according to the responses.

Authenticity systems are an important tool for minimizing spoofing risk. Mutual certificate authentification is a system in which both communicating parties authenticate each other by certifying a provided digital certificate. Domain authentification is a tool that verifies the domain ownership of message transfer agents involved in transferring the message.

Packet filtering is a type of firewall that monitors and then either passes or blocks information packets from a network interface based on data such as source and destination addresses. Deep packet inspection is another firewall that inspects data, and then provides users with warnings or alerts, or blocks or re-routes the packets.

Spoofing will exist for as long as people want to take from others through fraudulent means. Even though the techniques and tools continue to grow in sophistication and deviousness, the tools that are employed to fight them are growing just as fast. It's always important to be skeptical when receiving information, be it online or otherwise. If somebody is asking you to make a decision, especially quickly, it's better to remember that there is never a good reason to let somebody pressure you into revealing your personal information.

Add This Entry To Your CureZone Favorites!