How Spoofing Scams Work

Michelle Wilson - September 17, 2019

A lot of us have experienced a spoofing attempt in our lives whether or not we are aware of it. That is a fact of being connected to the wonderful world of technology. It may have been some online form you filled out thinking you were providing information to a reputable company, while it was really an imposter. Or perhaps you got a phone call from a “representative” of a company you do business with already. You’ve probably been a target (or will be).

Spoofing has really caused a lot of problems. Not only for every day consumers but also business.

Alright but what exactly is spoofing?

In short, spoofing is when a thief attempts a form of deception where they misrepresent information to make their target feel comfortable divulging valuable details about their personal identity for purposes of fraud. Typical avenues for this include scam websites, emails and maybe even phone calls and text messages.

Internet spoofing comes in the form of scam websites and emails that trick you into clicking a link that takes you to a fake website where it asks you to provide your personal details to “verify” who you are. However when you do this you are just giving them the ability to become you. Never give personal details on a site that you didn’t specifically go to and know to be the source you are looking for.

Phone spoofing scams can be tricky. These come in the form of text messages as well as direct calls from a live person or a bot dialer. A text may come in and appear to be from a provider you are using looking, again, to “verify” your information in order to relay “important account details” (or the like). Typically they request immediate payments. Obviously, never give payment information to anyone other those you directly sought out.

Listen, spoofing is big bucks. The industry has grown to generate over a billion dollars in revenue and is set to affect roughly 45% of the U.S. mobile phone traffic by the end of this year! That’s up from just 4% just a couple of years ago.

If you thought it was only the “bad guys” who were spoofing. You’d be wrong. Spoofing tactics have become popular amongst telemarketers as well. In fact over a hundred million dollars in fines have been levied to telemarketing companies found to be using spoofing.

Basically, what you need to know, is that the person you are talking to is not who you think you are talking to.

The Inner Workings

The definition of spoofing is; “when a hacker impersonates another device or user on a network in order to steal data, spread malware, or bypass access controls. The most common forms are IP spoofing, email spoofing and DNS spoofing.”

• Emails –

  Emails have beena mainstay of spoofing for since the dawning of AOL. They will use tactics deploying settings from within the email itself, such as changing their “from” email addresses. Or supplying a link to you that is masked to look like another website.

• IP Spoofing –

  Sometimes hackers will deploy a tactic called IP Spoofing. This is meant to disguise the identity of the fraudster. This is typically done on large networks (attacks on a business) where they are looking to gain access to that network by pretending to be from within it.

• Phone Spoofing –

  Mostly will come in the form of texts however there has been a rise lately in robo calls. However spoofing also includes the very phone number that appears in your caller ID. Companies have found ways to disguises their numbers to be numbers that seem local or might be more recognized (like starting with the same prefix as your own number).

Alright… spoofing… got it… How Do I Protect Myself?

Just as in life when taking a walk at night, you protect yourself by staying ever vigilant. Complacency is what really gets us in trouble and gets us to act against our better senses.

Here are some tips to help you out:

• 1. Ghost em! –

  Email? Text? Phone call? Don’t recognize it? Ignore it. You didn’t request the communication therefore you are not obligated at all to respond to it in the least.

• 2. Click* –

  Yeah that’s right! Show them what the dial tone sounds like. Tell them you are transferring them to the DT (dial tone) department and get off that phone!

• 3. Flip It And Reverse It –

  If calls are going to your Voice Mail, let’s use that opportunity to perform a reverse phone search on CheckPeople. Let’s see just who it is that’s calling you. This way you can report them!

• 4. Play Dumb –

  You don’t know your personal information… let me repeat that… you DON’T KNOW your personal information. Got it? Never hand over ANY information.

• 5. No Curiosity –

  Do not click links you find in suspicious emails. You don’t know what you are asking for when you click an untrusted link. It’s better to just let curiosity slip away.

Spoofing isn’t magic. It is very real and it will be around, as long as people communicate. And since you enjoy reading articles such as this one I don’t see communication going away any time soon!

Stay vigilant!