What is a Spoofing Attack? Different Types of Spoofing Attacks
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Posted at 2021-09-22 12:17:34
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By Prefixx Team
We live in a digital environment where a significant portion of our everyday operations relies on technological devices like computers, smartphones, etc. While these devices offer convenience and faster accessibility, they come with their own set of obstacles. Carry large amounts of sensitive and private data makes your digital devices an easy target for data thieves and hackers.
In this article, we will discuss a common cybersecurity threat, spoofing attacks. We will also outline the most common types of spoofing attacks, sharing the different ways a hacker can invade and steal your data.
What is Spoofing?
In simple terms, spoofing is the act of disguising one as a known source to a person to gain their trust and access to data. A spoofing attack is a process adopted by hackers to impersonate a person or program to obtain your confidence and access to your device and data on it. A spoofing attack can target to either access your device, steal your data, or spread malware.
Different Types of Spoofing:
Email spoofing:
Through email spoofing, hackers send you an email containing false or misleading sender addresses with the intent to steal your data. These emails appear to be sent by your friends, coworkers, or leading online companies. Lack of logos, animations, images, typos, impersonalized greetings is some of the detectable red flags of spoofed emails.
Website or URL spoofing:
Website spoofing is the process of making a harmful website appear identical to a genuine and trusted website. With a similar website layout, color scheme, user interface, a spoofed website aims at stealing your login credentials to the original website. Even the domain name of the spoofed website appears indistinguishable to misguide users.
Caller ID spoofing:
Scammers use caller ID spoofing to call you from a number with its location set to a place near you. Caller ID spoofing can also mimic the first few digits of your phone number to trick you into thinking that the call is originating nearby. Most people are less hesitant to answer a call from an unknown number from their neighborhood.
Text message spoofing:
Through text spoofing, you will receive text messages originating from a scammer using a different phone number. These text messages contain links to spoofed or malicious websites or malware downloads. Hackers use text spoofing to hide their true identity behind an alphanumeric sender ID to pretend as trusted companies.
GPS spoofing:
Hackers use GPS spoofing to conceal their actual location and share a different fake location with you. With GPS spoofing, scammers get the opportunity to misguide your navigation. GPS spoofing, combined with other types like text or caller ID spoofing, helps hackers gain your trust and confidence.
Man-in-the-middle attacks:
Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attacks enable hackers and data thieves to access your data by hacking the Wi-Fi network at public locations like cafes, restaurants, and malls. This type of spoofing permits the hacker to redirect personal data and funds from your account through the local communication network.
Extension spoofing:
Extension spoofing is the process of hiding malicious malware as extensions. Hackers disguise the name of their files using ".txt.exe." This hides the files and seems like a .txt file to the users. This causes them to believe it is a harmless file when it's a potentially harmful malware that can infect their device.
IP spoofing:
IP spoofing is the process of creating Internet Protocol (IP) packets to impersonate a trusted human or computer system. IP spoofing can convince a receiving party to believe that they are receiving data from a legitimate network. It can direct overwhelming traffic to a device causing DDoS attacks.
Facial spoofing:
Facial spoofing is the latest spoofing attack adopted by hackers using facial ID to hack into your device. It enables them to authorize payments, sign documents, and transfer data to their devices. Hackers use your pictures from your social media accounts to build a facial model to hack into your device.
Conclusion
We hope that by reading the above information, you have learned what a spoofing attack means. Our detailed description of the different types of spoofing attacks will help understand the different ways a data hacker can access and steal your data. We suggest that you invest in a reliable cybersecurity system to protect you against malicious spoofing attacks on your device and data.
