Due to the widespread use of email for business and personal correspondence, most people are familiar with email spoofing attacks. What’s not common knowledge is that email spoofing is not the only type of spoofing attack that bad actors use to access networks. This article will discuss the various types of spoofing attacks and how you can protect your data from this popular type of cyberattack.
A spoofing attack occurs when an attacker pretends to be a person or an authorized device to illegally gain access to a system.
Other Types of Spoofing Attacks
Most people are familiar with email spoofing, but there are many types of attacks. Here are a few of the most popular attacks on systems.
IP Address Spoofing
An internet protocol (IP) address is a piece of data that identifies the device trying to gain access to a system. With an IP spoofing attack, the attacker generates multiple phony IP addresses and sends them to a system with the objective of shutting it down. Legitimate users are denied access to the overloaded system. This is a type of denial of service (DOS) attack because the objective is to render the system useless.
DNS Spoofing
This type of spoofing works by inserting a fake address record into the Domain Name System. When a user attempts to visit the actual site, they are redirected to a malicious website. The fake website may look just like the trusted original site, which means that users are more likely to share information. For instance, a user goes to originalsite.web, but they are quickly redirected to fakesite.web, which looks like originalsite.web. They are then prompted to log into the site, providing the scammer with their login ID and password.
ARP Spoofing
This is a complicated attack that involves connecting the attacker’s MAC address to the victim’s IP address. If successful, the spoofer can eavesdrop on information intended for the legitimate computer.
Website Spoofing
Websites have unique web addresses, but it isn’t difficult to create an identical-looking site with a slightly different web address. For example, apple.com (the real site) vs. appie.com (the “l” is replaced with an ”i”). These spoofed sites are often used in conjunction with email scams. A casual observer might click the link, not realizing that the “l” had been replaced with an “i,” especially if the link is embedded in other text.
Because of the value of the data at stake, spoofing scams are constantly evolving. It’s essential for cybersecurity professionals to be trained on
Expertise in Identifying Spoofing Attacks
“Don’t click links from unknown senders.” You’ve probably seen this valuable piece of advice in every article you’ve ever read about improving your personal or business security. Not clicking on strange links is still a solid defensive practice. However, most cybercriminals are aware that companies and individuals are getting better at recognizing spoofy links. In response to this, scammers have become better at masking email spoof attacks.
This is also the case with other types of spoofing attacks. The better that intended victims and spoofing detection software get at recognizing spoofing scams, the more sophisticated the attacks become. This is why it’s essential that businesses employ professionally trained IT security personnel to detect and neutralize spoofing attacks. Most in-house IT departments are not trained or equipped to detect more professional attacks, which creates an enormous vulnerability. A managed security service provider (MSSP) is a company that works with your IT department to secure your system.
Flagler Technologies is an MSSP. Our IT security professionals are familiar with the most recent spoofing attacks, and we know how to stop them. Call today to discuss your company’s security needs.
Quality of Security Services
In order to meet the most sophisticated spoofing attacks, top-to-bottom training is essential. That means that your cybersecurity team has to be aware of the latest attacks, and they must be able to recognize the signs of a new attack. When they discover a new threat — either by reading an industry report or finding an attempt on a system that they’re charged with protecting — they must inform management and establish training for the employees.
Additionally, a cybersecurity professional must know about the latest threat detection software. Many reliable programs are using AI to help detect and neutralize attacks. While these products are a major breakthrough in cybersecurity, they often generate false positives — recognizing legitimate users as spoofers. That’s why you need a human presence to verify the authorized user and restore their access.
Employee Education on Spoofing Protection
Humans are the greatest vulnerability in most companies, and logically, that makes them targets for cybercriminals. In addition to training employees about common spoofing attacks, companies should instruct them on reporting procedures. It’s important to remember that nearly anyone can fall for a spoofing attack, so harshly admonishing employees for clicking on a malicious link may be counter-productive. Some cybersecurity teams run penetration tests to bait employees to click on a spammy-looking link. The link actually leads to a site controlled by the security team. The objective is to identify vulnerable employees and retrain them.
Enhanced Email Security Measures
In addition to increased training, there are sophisticated email scanning programs that help to identify malicious content. Everyone is familiar with the spam folder that’s attached to all email platforms. For the most part, it does a good job of filtering suspicious emails. However, anti-spoofing software can detect when an email is sent from an unauthorized domain address, scan the links inside the email, use machine learning to detect anomalies in sender patterns, and more. Again, it’s essential to have human oversight to monitor and tweak the settings of these programs to ensure that authorized emails are not being blocked or that malicious mail is getting through.
The Role of Network Security in Preventing Spoofing
Even the best defenses have vulnerabilities. Cybersecurity teams operate on the premise that if a bad actor works hard enough, they will successfully spoof the system. That’s why they employ a layered approach to security. For example, limiting user access to only the systems they require mitigates the amount of damage that a successful hack could cause. In addition, system firewalls prevent an attacker with a sign-in from accessing systems that are unrelated to the compromised employee’s role in the company.
Managed Security Service Provider in Florida
Flagler Technologies is a managed service provider (MSP) and managed security service provider (MSSP) for IT. We can provide support for your IT team to help harden your defenses against spoofing and other attacks. Call today to talk to one of our professional technicians.