Email spoofing is one of the most prevalent tactics malicious individuals employ as part of their social engineering and phishing attacks.
There’s a good chance that you’ve already been a target of it at least on one occasion. The main reason for this is that email spoofing can trick anyone from a single person to a large enterprise.
What’s even scarier is that scammers send billions of fake emails each day with the intention of spoofing users. Given that the majority of cyberattacks begin from accepting an email message, it’s best to learn what a spoofed email is all about and how you can prevent falling for it.
What Is Email Spoofing?
Email spoofing is one of the most common and oldest cybercrimes that can trace its origins as far back as the year 1996. It is an approach where malicious individuals send seemingly harmless messages to trick their would-be victims.
One of the main activities of a spoofing practitioner is to change their email metadata, such as the email address or display name they use to appear as a trusted sender. They may even resort to techniques that can easily fool users into thinking a sender is legitimate by changing letters in a business name, such as using “PayRal” rather than “PayPal” or “Facepook” instead of “Facebook.”
Oftentimes, cybercriminals use social engineering as part of their spoofing strategy. They do this by impersonating a reputable sender – be it as a business partner, co-worker, or stakeholder.
Malicious individuals employ such tactics to take advantage of their target’s emotions when receiving an email from someone they think they know. One prevalent technique they use is creating a sense of urgency. They make victims think something bad will happen if they don’t click the email as soon as possible. This doesn’t give them enough time to think the situation through and realize it’s a scam.
How Does Email Spoofing Work?
People who perform email spoofing carry out their tactics by using a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server and a regular email platform like Gmail, Yahoo, or Outlook.
After composing the content of their message, these malicious individuals copy the fields located in the message header. These fields are often the from, return path, and reply to sender addresses. The goal here is to deceive the recipient into believing that the email comes from the sender address forged by the scammer.
Email spoofing is possible because the SMTP standard doesn’t come with a way to confirm if an address is genuine or not. Fortunately, there are methods and protocols available for users to combat email spoofing.
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Types of Email Spoofing
Scammers employ a few methods of email spoofing that come with varying complexity. The various types of email spoofing also differ with regards to the part of the message an attacker forges for their attack.
Here are the three most common variations used today:
Email Domain Spoofing
Cybercriminals will also attempt to trick users into believing that an email comes from a legitimate website or domain. In such attempts, these attackers often resort to using the address of a trusted entity by changing the “From” header while changing the email address and display name to show deceptive details.
In email domain spoofing, the attack doesn’t require penetration of the target as the hacker only has to leverage faulty SMTP servers. These same servers allow connections through their networks without confirming each one, thereby letting users configure their “From” and “To” addresses for malicious purposes.
Email Domain Impersonation Spoofing
If the above method doesn’t work, then impersonating it is another technique cybercriminals employ. They would often set up a domain that has similarities to the original and use that to try and trick recipients.
The idea here is to make extremely minimal changes to the sender’s address used so that a reader that isn’t paying attention will open the email. A lot of users are deceived by such practices especially since many of them don’t take their time reading email headers.
Since the attacker is using a legitimate email address, the message they send won’t trigger spam filters. There have been countless instances where people have given their sensitive information believing that the sender is someone they know.
Email Display Name Spoofing
In display name spoofing, an attacker attempts to trick its recipient by forging the display name of a trusted user. Anyone can spoof someone else’s display name simply by creating a new account and applying the same name as the person they’re impersonating.
Email display name spoofing can bypass standard security measures as the address, a legitimate one, doesn’t get flagged as spam. User interfaces (UIs) that were made with inadequate safety protocols are the most common ones attackers exploit.
Smartphone email apps, platforms that only show the display name of a user, are among the easiest to take advantage of when it comes to email display name spoofing.
How Spoofing Can Affect Your Reputation
Although a company or brand can’t be held liable when attackers impersonate their email addresses and domains, such actions can still have a negative impact on their reputations. Left unchecked, people will start seeing your brand as negligent given how they could just let these actions continue.
Allowing cybercriminals to repeatedly use the identity of your company to trick others will affect the effectiveness of your efforts in email marketing. Consequently, your business will suffer if you leave things as-is without taking the right actions.
In fact, most consumers will start avoiding businesses even after just a single bad experience – whether that was by their own doing or from others. People can easily feel betrayed online and they’d be warier in dealing with you in the future even if you caused the problem or not.
Neglecting such harmful actions to your brands will eventually have a lasting impact on your engagement rates. Your subscribers will be hesitant in opening your messages the next time you send them out.
Protecting Your Brand Reputation With Authentication Protocols
The good news is that there are techniques you, as an email sender, can start applying today to effectively protect your reputation against email spoofing. Experts have come up with technologies that will give email services the ability to identify senders.
One of the best ways to confirm one’s identity online is by incorporating one or more of the email authentication protocols available. At this time, there are 4 primary methods that will fill the gap that SMTP lacks.
These are:
Authentication Protocol #1: SPF
Sender Policy Framework, also known as SPF, is one of the first email authentication protocols email marketers use to help mail servers confirm sender identities. It reduces the effectiveness of email spoofing by providing servers with a TXT record containing the list of all approved email addresses.
This means that only those IP addresses listed in this record are allowed to send emails on behalf of the domain. Due to how easy it is to apply, SPF is the most common email security protocol available and is often required by most mailbox providers.
Having an SPF record allows servers to know who sent an email and whether or not the sender is authorized to do so. Each time a user sends a message, the protocol will read the SPF record and decide whether or not to accept it.
Senders that are accepted will have their messages continue on to their designated inboxes while those that are rejected will be marked as spam and phishing emails or sent straight to the junk folder.
Authentication Protocol #2: DKIM
DomainKeys Identified Mail, also known as DKIIM, is the second most common email authentication method that aims to identify forged email headers as well as the content. It lets mailbox providers know if there’s anything amiss in the email due to alterations made during transit.
Compared to Sender Policy Framework, DKIM is a bit more complex. What makes it better than SPF is that it will still continue to apply its precautionary measures even if an email has been forwarded by the sender.
DKIM will provide its users with public and private keys. The public key is assigned for use with your DNS while the private key is intended for the server you’re using.
Whenever you send a message, the recipient’s server looks for the DKIM signature while using the public key obtained from the DNS to validate it. DKIM is similar to a letter seal that provides assurance that an email hasn’t been tampered with.
Authentication Protocol #3: DMARC
The third type of email authentication protocol available is the Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance or DMARC. This standard ensures that a message came from an authorized sender and not from anyone else.
What makes DMARC unique is that it operates under a combination of the SPF and DKIM frameworks. Most email senders and service providers use DMARC as it provides them with a vital layer of protection against email spoofing tactics.
Users who implement DMARC have three policies to choose from: none, quarantine, and reject. The first and second policies, or the none and quarantine respectively, allow senders to monitor what’s happening in their domain, which is particularly useful when starting out.
As for the reject policy, this option is intended to let senders implement the strictest security measure right away. This means that in case a message fails a DMARC test, it should be rejected immediately with no other actions to be taken.
The following are the activities that occur to an email upon receiving a DMARC check:
- At the start, the receiving mail server performs the SPF and DKIM checks and sees if they are in line with the sender’s records.
- In case there aren’t any issues, the server inputs the DMARC policy and carries out the instructions provided depending on the chosen policy.
- Once an action has been decided, the DMARC authentication protocol will provide a report on what it has done regarding a specific message. It will also implement the same action it has taken to the succeeding emails it receives from the sender.
Authentication Protocol #4: BIMI
Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) is one of the newest standards that provide senders and email service providers additional protection against email spoofing. Similar to the email authentication protocols mentioned above, BIMI works by providing a TXT record on email servers.
In fact, it works in tandem with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to provide mailbox clients with extra information that a sender is legitimate. However, its primary difference lies in its ability to let companies display their logo in inboxes so that recipients can immediately identify them from other senders.
There are many email clients that already allow users to place their logos in inboxes. Unfortunately, these services don’t provide senders with in-depth control regarding what they can do with their logos. But with BIMI, it’s possible to have direct control over what logo to use so you can maintain proper branding online.
As mentioned, BIMI uses a TXT file that takes on a certain format, stays on the sending servers, and provides these servers with instructions on what to do next. Each time you send an email, the email service provider searches the BIMI record to make sure it comes from a verified source.
The BIMI files provide the email client with instructions on where they can locate your logo. From there, the provider then pulls the appropriate image and displays it in the recipient’s inbox.
Despite appearing straightforward, there are some things you need to remember when configuring BIMI:
- SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are necessary for you to set up BIMI and get it to work.
- Before you can create a BIMI DNS entry, you first need to have access to your own domain’s servers.
- Using an SVG file is necessary when displaying your logo for BIMI authentication.
At this time, there are only a few email service providers that support BIMI which makes it an optional choice for now to prevent email spoofing. However, this email authentication method is on the rise and we should expect to see more clients incorporating it in the future.
Conclusion
Email spoofing is one of the most prevalent fraud techniques cybercriminals use today to trick people into giving up important information. There have been numerous instances where data breaches occurred due to being deceived by spoofed messages.
Fortunately, there are email authentication protocols available that let servers verify the identity of the sender before accepting their message. The four available standards today are SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and BIMI.
Applying these protocols should help improve your email deliverability as well as your sender reputation as a legitimate email marketer.
