Seven Types of Spoofing Attacks and How To Avoid Them

Cybercriminals often use spoofing attacks to disguise themselves as a familiar face or legitimate business to trick people into revealing sensitive information. They use a variety of techniques such as creating fake websites or emails. Some of the different types of spoofing attacks include call spoofing, email spoofing, website spoofing and IP spoofing.

Continue reading to learn more about spoofing attacks, the seven common types of spoofing attacks and how to stay protected from them.

1. Call Spoofing

When you receive a phone call, your phone displays a caller ID to reveal who is calling. The caller ID shows the phone number, who the phone number belongs to (if known) and where the call is coming from. Most of the time, your phone can detect and notify you about spam calls. However, cybercriminals use call spoofing to work around that. 

Call spoofing is when cybercriminals disguise their caller ID information to hide who they really are. Cybercriminals often pose as someone the victim would recognize such as a representative from a business or someone from the area. After gaining a victim’s trust, cybercriminals will trick them into revealing their sensitive information.

2. Email Spoofing

Email spoofing is when a cybercriminal sends emails to potential victims using fake sender addresses. Cybercriminals forge a sender address by manipulating the envelope and header parts of the email to make the “From” field look like it’s from a trusted source. They will often use spoofed emails that look similar to legitimate emails with a couple of discrepancies, such as replacing a letter with a similar-looking number or symbol in the email address – for example, replacing an “o” with a zero. Email spoofing is often used to carry out phishing attacks and trick people into revealing their personal information.

3. Website Spoofing

Website spoofing is when cybercriminals create a malicious website that tries to impersonate a legitimate one. The malicious website looks almost identical to the one it tries to impersonate, but with a few discrepancies such as a slightly changed URL. They will go as far as to use Google as a way to trap and fool victims. This is known as search engine phishing and it happens when cybercriminals use search engine optimization to appear at the top of Google’s search results page. The goal is to get potential victims to visit the phony site so they enter their sensitive information, so the cybercriminal can steal it or infect a victim’s device with malware.

4. IP Spoofing

IP spoofing is when cybercriminals alter their IP address to hide their real identity or impersonate another user. It is often used to avoid getting caught for cyber attacks and bypass IP blacklists to gain unauthorized access to a network. IP blacklists prevent malicious IP addresses from accessing a network. IP spoofing is often used in DDoS attacks which is when cybercriminals try to slow down or crash a server by overwhelming it with a flood of internet traffic.

5. SMS Spoofing

SMS spoofing is just like call spoofing, but instead of altering the caller ID, it changes the sender ID on a text message to look like it is coming from a different number. SMS spoofing is not entirely used for malicious purposes. Many businesses use SMS spoofing to replace long phone numbers with short and easy-to-remember alphanumeric IDs for marketing purposes. However, cybercriminals take advantage of this practice by impersonating legitimate businesses and hiding their identities behind spoofed sender IDs. SMS spoofing is often used to carry out smishing, also known as SMS phishing, and send text messages with malicious links.

6. ARP Spoofing

Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is a protocol that enables dynamic IP addresses to connect to physical Media Access Control (MAC) addresses to transmit data across a Local Area Network (LAN). ARP spoofing is when cybercriminals send fake ARP messages to match the attacker’s MAC address to a victim’s IP address. Once the addresses are connected, the victim’s data is redirected to the cybercriminal, which allows them to steal or modify it.

7. DNS Spoofing

A Domain Name Systems (DNS) server is a database of IP addresses of domains that computers use to access websites. DNS spoofing, also known as DNS cache poisoning, is a type of pharming in which cybercriminals alter DNS records to redirect users to malicious websites. Cybercriminals infiltrate DNS servers by exploiting their security vulnerabilities. Once the cybercriminal has infiltrated the DNS server, they alter the records so that the domain names are paired with the IP addresses of malicious websites. When a user tries to visit a website, they are redirected to a spoofed website that tries to steal the user’s sensitive information.

How To Stay Protected Against Spoofing Attacks

Cybercriminals use spoofing attacks to try to hide their identity by impersonating familiar faces and tricking users into revealing their sensitive information. You need to protect yourself against spoofing attacks to keep your information safe. Here are the ways you can protect yourself against spoofing attacks.

Avoid clicking on suspicious links

Many cybercriminals will use spoofing attacks to send you suspicious links to malicious websites that try to steal your sensitive information or infect your device with malware. You should avoid clicking on suspicious links to prevent cybercriminals from stealing your sensitive information. If you want to check if a link is safe, look at the URL to see if there are any discrepancies, or use a URL checker to verify the safety of a link.

Ignore unsolicited messages

Cybercriminals spoof a variety of communication methods to trick you into giving up your sensitive information. You should ignore unsolicited messages from suspicious senders. You can tell an unsolicited message is a spoofing attack if you notice urgent language, requests for personal information, pre-recorded messages, a mismatch between the sender’s name and the email address or phone number, spelling and grammatical errors, discrepancies in the URL and warning signs from your service provider.

Install antivirus software

Cybercriminals will use spoofing attacks to infect a user’s device with malware to damage the device or steal sensitive information. You should use antivirus software to stay protected against spoofing attacks. Antivirus software is a program that detects, prevents and removes known malware from your device. It will scan your device to find any hidden malware and remove it. High-end antivirus software will detect any incoming malware and prevent it from installing on your device.

Use a password manager

A password manager is a tool that securely stores and manages your personal information in an encrypted vault. You can store sensitive information such as your login credentials, credit card information and Social Security number in your digital vault. Your digital vault is protected by multiple layers of encryption and can only be accessed using a master password.

A password manager can help identify and prevent spoofing attacks that aim to steal your personal information. When you store your login credentials for your online accounts in a password manager, the password manager stores the domain of the login page for that account. The autofill feature of a password manager will only fill in your login credentials when it is on the correct domain that is stored in your vault. If you are on a spoofed website, then your password manager will not fill out your login credentials because the domain will not match.

Enable MFA

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is a security measure that requires users to provide different forms of authentication. With MFA enabled, users must provide their login credentials along with at least one other factor of authentication, such as a Time-Based One Time (TOTP) code, in order to gain access to their online accounts. MFA provides an extra layer of security to your accounts and only allows authorized users to access them. Even if a cybercriminal were to steal your login credentials through a spoofing attack, they would not be able to access your account because they couldn’t provide the additional form of authentication.

Stay Protected From Spoofing Attacks With Keeper®

With the advancement of technology like AI, spoofing attacks look more legitimate and have become harder to detect. However, you can use a password manager to identify and avoid spoofing attacks. Most spoofing attacks try to get you to visit a malicious website that will trick you into revealing your personal information or downloading malware onto your device. With a password manager, you can detect spoofing attacks because your login credentials will not automatically fill in. 

Keeper Password Manager is protected by zero-trust security and zero-knowledge encryption, which ensures only you have access to your personal information. It also comes with the KeeperFill feature which is powered by KeeperAI to automatically log you in to your online accounts. Sign up for a free trial to stay protected from spoofing attacks.