Email spoofing is not a new problem, but detecting and preventing it is becoming more challenging. A recent study found that many email providers and services have flaws that allow hackers to bypass the security measures that are supposed to verify the sender's identity.
The researchers discovered that email forwarding is one of the leading causes of these flaws. This feature lets you automatically send incoming emails to another address. For example, forward your work emails to your personal account or vice versa. However, hackers can also exploit email forwarding to send spoofed emails that look like they come from legitimate domains, such as government agencies, news organizations, or financial companies.
There are several vulnerabilities in email forwarding that allow spoofing attacks to occur. The original protocol assumed that each organization had its own unique IP address to check the authenticity of an email. However, today, many organizations outsource their email infrastructure to services like Gmail and Outlook. This means that thousands of domains have permitted third-party services to send emails on their behalf, making spoofing attacks easier.
The researchers tested their attacks on 14 email providers and found that more than 12% of the most popular internet domains and 32% of .gov domains are vulnerable to this type of spoofing. They also found that some mailing list services, such as Google Groups and Mailman, can be used to spread spoofed emails to many recipients at once.
So, what can you do to protect yourself from email spoofing?
- You should always be careful and skeptical when opening emails from unknown or unexpected senders, especially if they ask you to download attachments or click on links
- You should also check the email headers for any signs of tampering or inconsistency
- If you need more clarification about the authenticity of an email, you should contact the sender directly or report it as spam
#ALTACyber
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Genady Vishnevetsky
Chief Info Security Officer
Stewart Title Guaranty Company
Houston TX
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