We have all received fake emails from unknown email addresses or fake accounts. Nowadays, people who encounter such fake emails can detect and recognize them. Do you know what a spoofed email is? Email spoofing occurs when the sender’s account or domain name are formatted to make the email appear legitimate.

For example, a fake email may give the impression that it had been sent by someone known like a friend, family member, or even your boss.

For instance, let’s suppose your friend is Alex James and his email address is Alexjames@gmail.com. A quick way to ensure that Alex James is the sender of the email, is to check its header. The email header contains important details. You can check who sent the email, to whom, subject, date and time. You can use the email header to identify the sender.

So how to avoid getting spoofed emails and avoid becoming a victim?

Addressing email fraud requires a layered approach to security. Generally, the weakest users should have knowledge and best practices to help them understand how to detect email fraud and phishing attacks.

However, because users cannot identify every email spoofing attempt at all times, organizations need modern protection measures that enable users to automatically detect and report suspicious emails.

Scammers use email or text messages to trick you into providing personal information. They may try to steal your password, bank account or social security number. If they receive such information, they can access your email, bank or other account.

Scammers launch thousands of such phishing attacks every day, and they are usually successful. The Internet Crime Complaint Center of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported that people lose $57 million a year due to phishing attempts. Scammers usually update their strategies, but there are several signs that can help you spot phishing emails or text messages.

Differences between hacked and spoofed

A compromised account means that someone else gains access to your account by obtaining a password. Spoofed email usually happens when the “From” field of a message is changed to reflect your address. This does not mean that other people can access your account. From the folder you sent, you can determine whether your account has been hacked or spoofed.

• If you can’t find any strange emails in the “Sent Items” folder, your account may have been spoofed.
• When you find an unsent email in the “Sent Items” folder, your account has been hacked.

Phishing emails and text messages can even come from companies you trust. They may look like card companies, banks, social networking sites, online payment sites or apps, or even online stores.

Following are 4 steps to protect yourself from spoofed emails:

· Use security software to protect your computer

Set your software to automatically update in response to new security threats.

· Protect your phone by installing automatic software updates

These updates provide critical protection against security threats.

· Protect your account with 2-factor authentication

Few website log panel provide additional security where you need at least two IDs to log in to your account. Acquire double-factor authentication for additional security.

· Protect your data with backups

Back up your data and make sure that these backups are not connected to the home-based network. You can copy files from your computer to a portable hard drive or cloud storage. At the same time back up your phone data.

Provide cyber awareness training for your employees to help them detect dangers

It’s no secret that your employees are usually your strengths and weaknesses when dealing with cybersecurity threats. A study explains that the 80% of global cybersecurity experts identified that they conducted scam email attacks in 2020.

This is why preparing your staff for cyberspace is so important. This kind of training is beneficial to all your employees, even the CEO should be included in the training. Regular training of employees can help them improve their knowledge and understand the real threats facing them and your business. Testing it with a phishing simulator will help you discover knowledge gaps and develop future training to meet these needs.

The best way to stop email scams is to install an effective anti-phishing solution that runs in the background and alerts you to suspicious emails via email notifications. You can reply or forward until the recipient is marked as safe. Before that, employees can open it to find the reason for the report.

No business is immune from data loss

Today, the risk of fraud and malicious email is much higher. People may lose financial security due to identity theft. After all, social security numbers, credit card information, medical records, bank account numbers, etc. can all use the organization’s database, causing billions of dollars in damage not only to the organization but also to the person whose information was stolen. Small businesses are often hit by malicious and spoofed emails. Big companies usually consider cybersecurity as one of the important campaigns and make sure to keep their information as safe as possible.

Common Spoofing Emails

Due to spelling, grammar and other obvious factors, spoofed emails are easy to recognize in advance. However, phishing attacks have become more sophisticated, and even the most experienced Internet users have fallen due to phishing attacks. However, email spoofing should not be confused with cloned phishing. The phishing clone scam will copy a recently received email, replace the link with a malicious link, and claim to forward the email due to an update that explains the repetitive nature of the email. Such an email will convince you to click again and re-enter your personal information.

Here are some of the most common spoofing email tactics:

Tech Support Scams

These tempting phishing emails look like they come from your ISP or a company like Microsoft. Usually, you will be prompted to install troubleshooting software via email. The program will discover a lot of malicious software and offer a fee-based solution to the problem. After entering your credit card information, fraudsters may use your account information for fraudulent purposes.

Charity Scams

These emails look like they come from a legitimate charitable organization or foundation requesting donations. When donating, you may be asked over and over again until you stop or discover that it is a scam.

Penalty Warnings

At some point, many people may feel guilty by visiting inappropriate websites or illegally downloading songs or movies. This trick is based on this scam and assumes that the email comes from an FBI warning that you must pay for this or bear the consequences. You may find it hard to believe that someone takes it as a joke, but some people choose to be careful and just spend money to solve the problem and fall for it.

Fake Attachments

Hackers can also use fake email attachments to bypass stricter email filters. These fake attachments may contain phishing links to fake websites. Before you pay the hacker some money, some programs will not allow you to access the computer. If the software is hidden in a fake attachment, it will remain disabled until the recipient attempts to open the attachment. After opening the attachment, the software will be downloaded to your computer. Once the software is downloaded, it can take all the control of the computer until he pays the hacker to unblock it.

How to stop spoofing emails from my email address?

If a spammer or cybercriminal uses your email address to launch an attack, your email account may be compromised and the attacker can use your credentials to send mail. You can avoid this by using a reliable yet Cheap VPN that offers the best security. Other ways are by changing your login information and using a strong password.

Your account may also be protected, and attackers may use your email address as the “From:” address in emails you send. In this case, you can only report the incident to the ISP (internet service provider).

How to avoid phone scams

Have you recently received a call from “Windows technical support”? This may be a phone scam since it is one of the most common phishing attacks, accounting for about 30% of all mobile phones in 2020.

Phishing is basically an attempt to gather personal information over the phone. Attackers repeatedly pretend to cooperate with technical support, your bank or government agency to gather account information and even gain remote access to the computer.

To prevent identity theft, please follow these five guidelines:

• Even if the number seems to be a local call, you should be suspicious of receiving calls from unknown numbers.
• If they request personal information, please do not provide it over the phone.
• Use the caller ID application, but don’t rely on it completely.
• In addition, during the call, it is recommended to call the caller’s phone number online to see if the requesting person is legit or a scam.
• If the complaint is related to the product or service you use, please visit the supplier’s website or call the supplier directly to confirm the request.

Wrapping up

Email spoofing is very dangerous. This endangers the security of our personal and financial information. Thousands of people become victims every day. Don’t be a victim of phishing – protect yourself and improve online security by detecting fraud before fraudulent clicks. However, email recipients cannot fully bear this burden. In order to truly combat phishing strategies, companies need to be more vigilant in employee training and security software to better detect and prevent potentially harmful attacks.

Author Bio: Jade Nazareth is a writer at topvpnservice. She takes a keen interest in writing how-to guides and awareness blogs related to cybersecurity measures and software. To instill a little cyber-knowledge in her readers using layman’s terms is what she aims to do.