Preventing Email Phishing and Spoofing

Prevent Loss from Phishing and Spoofing Emails

Anyone using email should be aware of phishing and spoofing emails. In many cases, these fraudulent emails rely on the user's actions to be effective. 

"It's easier to hack a human than it is to hack their technology."  Hackers and cybercriminals everywhere.

✓  Increased awareness and critical thinking skills for email is vital for security and safety.

• Email spoofing is the creation of email messages with a forged sender address.
• Phishing is the fraudulent attempt to obtain sensitive information or data, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by disguising oneself as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

Many of these emails are not on their own dangerous or malicious - they require an action by the email user to be effective for the hacker.  This is known as "social engineering"  - a term that means psychological manipulation.

Whack - a mole - Eventually, the email address a hacker uses for these exploits will be blocked as they become identified as malicious. But, by then, they have moved on and are sending new exploits from a fresh address.

✓  Many phishing and spoofing emails are not blocked and cannot be stopped because they do not contain anything known to be malicious.