WBA Tech Tip of the Month: Email Spoofing

Have you ever received an email sent to you by you? Or, have you received a failure notice that an email you sent to someone couldn¹t be delivered, except that you didn't send the email, and you don't know the recipient? You've been spoofed.

Spoofing describes fraudulent email activity where the Sender and other information is altered to appear as though the email came from someplace else. It¹s comparable to postal mail examples (and almost as easy to achieve), where someone sends thousands of mass mailings but disguises the return address on the envelope.

The typical reaction from most people is that their computer must be infected with a virus or spyware, causing the computer to send out unsolicited emails. But, in fact, what's taking place has nothing to do with you or your computer.

That also means there isn't much you can do to prevent spoofing. The best you can do is to verify that it really isn't you sending the emails - check your email Sent Items folder, make sure your virus software is working and up to date, and in an office environment ask your network administrator to verify that the emails aren't coming from your workstation.

Otherwise, take a deep breath, knowing that eventually the emails will stop, when the person who is actually generating them finally gets caught by his/her Internet or email Service Provider.

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