Spoofing

What Does Spoofing Mean?

Spoofing, in general, is a fraudulent or malicious practice in which communication is sent from an unknown source disguised as a source known to the receiver. Spoofing is most prevalent in communication mechanisms that lack a high level of security.

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Techopedia Explains Spoofing

Email spoofing is one of the best known spoofs. Since core SMTP fails to offer authentication, it is simple to forge and impersonate emails. Spoofed emails may request personal information and may appear to be from a known sender. Such emails request the recipient to reply with an account number for verification. The email spoofer then uses this account number for identity theft purposes, such as accessing the victim’s bank account, changing contact details and so on.

The attacker (or spoofer) knows that if the recipient receives a spoofed email that appears to be from a known source, it is likely to be opened and acted upon. So a spoofed email may also contain additional threats like Trojans or other viruses. These programs can cause significant computer damage by triggering unexpected activities, remote access, deletion of files and more.

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…