What Is a Spoofing Attack? (And Why You Should Know)

If you run a website, you might already be familiar with common threats like ecommerce fraud or brute force attacks. Taking the necessary precautions against them can help you keep your site safe. However, there’s one type of threat that’s more difficult to detect (and prevent) than others – spoofing attacks.

Spoofing is when someone impersonates another person or organization to conduct an attack against a website or business. This can take different forms, and knowing how to recognize it can help you implement measures to stop it. 

In this post, we’ll take a closer look at spoofing attacks and why you need to be aware of them. Then, we’ll discuss different types of spoofing. Finally, we’ll show you how you can protect your online business from spoofing attempts by using a reliable hosting provider like NameHero. Let’s get started!

What Is a Spoofing Attack?

A spoofing attack is a technique used by malicious actors to gain unauthorized access to systems, steal data, or spread malware. As we mentioned, it involves impersonating another person or organization to trick victims into performing an action to their detriment.

Spoofing attacks are a bit different than phishing attacks. While they both involve deception through impersonation, the main purpose of phishing attacks is to obtain personal details like credit card numbers or passwords. 

This can be true for spoofing attacks, but they might also be used for a variety of other malicious purposes. For example, the attackers may re-direct users to a website with malware, or impersonate another organization to bypass verification systems and launch a denial of service attack. 

Why You Need to Be Aware of Spoofing Attacks

Now, let’s talk about why you need to be aware of spoofing attacks.

As we discussed, some attackers target individuals with the aim of stealing personal information like passwords and credit card numbers. Therefore, being aware of these spoofing tactics can help you protect yourself and your customers. 

A spoofing attack can also lead to financial losses for the victims. For instance, impersonators might trick employees into transferring funds to fraudulent accounts, or redirect them to fake banking websites designed to steal login credentials. 

What’s more, falling victim to a spoofing attack can damage your reputation. For businesses, a data breach might lead to legal liabilities, loss of customers, and negative publicity. 

Additionally, spoofing attacks can disrupt your business operations, especially if they spread malware into your website or take it down. 

Therefore, it’s important that you learn about the different types of spoofing attacks. While it may not always be possible to prevent these threats, knowing what they look like will enable you to take the necessary steps to protect your online business from them. 

Different Types of Spoofing Attacks

Now, let’s look at the most common types of spoofing attacks against individuals and businesses. 

Website Spoofing

Website spoofing is when a malicious actor creates a fake website that closely resembles a legitimate one. Typically, they do this to trick users into providing sensitive data. 

For example, they may pose as an insurance company or a governmental authority. The good news is that some spoofed websites are easy to spot. That’s because they may appear overtly questionable, containing a lot of misspellings and typos.

Plus, legitimate sites typically have a valid Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate. If you get a warning from the browser that your connection to the site is not secure, that’s a big red flag.

Of course, there’s nothing you can do to stop malicious actors from impersonating your website or business. But if you do come across a spoofed site, you can report it to Google.

You may also want to email your clients to warn them about a spoofing attack.

Email Spoofing

You’ve probably heard of email spoofing. This is when attackers send emails with forged addresses to make receivers think that they’re receiving a message from a legitimate source.

Like with website spoofing, these emails typically impersonate an official authority or financial institution, such as an insurance company or bank. Since the goal is to trick users into revealing sensitive information, email spoofing is a prime example of a phishing attack.

If your email software uses a strong spam filter, these spoofed communications will likely be filtered out. However, you can also implement email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, which are designed to block messages from a fraudulent sender address.

IP Spoofing

IP spoofing is a bit more elaborate than the methods discussed above. In this scenario, the attacker modifies their IP address to hide their real identity and impersonate another source. This way, they’re able to bypass authentication mechanisms used by firewalls to block suspicious traffic sources.

Many attackers use a spoofed IP address to carry out denial-of-service attacks. This involves overwhelming a website with a large volume of fake traffic. As a result, the site might go offline and become unavailable to legitimate users.

You can stop IP spoofing attacks by implementing ingress filtering into your routers and firewalls. This verifies that the source IP addresses are valid and appropriate for your network.

DNS Spoofing or Poisoning

The Domain Name System (DNS) is an online directory of IP addresses and their corresponding domain names. When an attacker carries out DNS poisoning, they try to manipulate these records to redirect users to malicious websites.

They might do this to distribute malware or steal sensitive information. Users will type in the right domain name, but unbeknownst to them, they’ll be redirected to a spoofed website. 

To protect your domain, you might want to implement something called Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC). This is a set of cryptographic protocols designed to add more security to a domain by digitally signing DNS records. It helps prevent other users from using your domain to create a spoofed URL for nefarious purposes.

Protecting Your Site Against Spoofing Attacks with NameHero

As mentioned earlier, there’s nothing you can do to completely stop malicious users from creating spoofed emails or fake websites. However, by choosing a reliable hosting provider for your site, you can help prevent spoofing attacks against your business. 

With NameHero you can get secure domain registration, web hosting, and email services:

When you register a domain name through NameHero, you’ll have the option to purchase ID protection for it. This will hide personally identifiable information, making it difficult for others to impersonate you:

Additionally, all web hosting plans come with a free SSL certificate. This will secure the connection between your site and genuine users, making it difficult for malicious actors to decrypt sensitive information and use it to impersonate you for spoofing attacks. 

If you opt for the Turbo Cloud plan or higher, you’ll also get a security suite, which includes a web application firewall. This can help you stop denial-of-service attacks carried out through IP spoofing:

Meanwhile, NameHero’s email hosting plans are equipped with tools to help you protect your business from phishing attempts. When you create your email account, a DKIM key and SPF record are automatically created for you. 

Conclusion

Spoofing is when a malicious actor impersonates another person, business, or authority to gain access to sensitive information or spread malware. They usually do this by copying a legitimate website, using a forged email address, or manipulating IP addresses or DNS records.

You can protect your business against spoofing attacks by implementing security tools like SSL certificates, a powerful firewall, and email authentication protocols. If you purchase your domain name and web hosting from a secure provider like NameHero, you’ll have access to all of these features and more. 

Do you have any questions about spoofing attacks and how to protect your website against them? Let us know in the comments section below!