Email Spoofing and Ways to Identify It

Last day when my dad was checking his mail, he found out an unusual mail from Yahoo Services that says to update your account so as to continue the mail service without deletion. Also it says in order to continue you have to reply the mail with your email address & password. As the email appears to be as a legit one, he asked me what it was all about. I figured it out, it was a forged email. An email spoofing.

So What is an Email Spoofing?
An email that appears to have originated from someone or somewhere other than the actual source.

Sometimes we become so confused by seeing these mail as they look so legit. These mails are sent by hackers or spammers to get your password or other sensitive information, or even your close ones to play prank on you. A person who is an hardcore internet user might can figure it out easily. But a person who is not very computer literate will fall in this trap. Lets check out some ways to identify email spoofing.

Here i created an email using hoaxMail and send myself as it is coming from Facebook.

The best way to check the legitimacy of a mail is to check its header. You can check the header by clicking “Reply” drop down menu and click on “show original“.

When you have your email header, Check for these to ensure the legitimacy of the mail.
1. Warning Flags: Which says the mail does not designate as a permitted sender.

2. The Email Id:  Check the email id has any relation with who it is claimed to be.

3. Warning Signs

The easiest way to check if this is a real email address, if you click “Reply” to the Email, you can see a different email address rather than the sender’s email address that is email address doesn’t match up with the email you got from the sender and to the email address you are replying. If the sender address and reply address is same, then the email is a trusted one.

So next time when you get a forged email,Check it out.!

Original post at http://www.iamshaazz.com

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