There are many dangers that people should be aware of when they use the internet and one is what many people have coined 'spoof'. Spoof on the internet is very common nowadays and can lead to such criminal activities as identity theft and fraud. If you would like to know more information about what spoofing is and the most common types, then read on as it will all be explained here.
The term spoof means 'to fool' and this is what happens on the internet, many people, even programs to fool through the process of deception and impersonating others to make out that they are authorized in order to gain access to software or others personal information and emails. Spoofing is also commonly referred and closely related to phishing, another illegal activity that fools internet users into giving up important personal information.
There are two main types of spoofing on the internet, IP spoofing and email spoofing. Below we will go into more detail of each of these types.
Spoofing IP Addresses:
IP spoofing is done by fooling servers into thinking that they are being access from another computer other than yours. The target computer thinks that data is coming from a computer other than yours because you camouflage your IP address to make it look like theirs in order to gain authentication into their system.
There are four main ways of spoofing IP addresses.
Non Blind Spoofing:
This type of attack is done when both attacker and victim share the same subnet , which helps to gain easy access to other IP numbers. Usually this type of IP spoofing is used for hijacking and failing the connection in order to re-sequence and reconnect it according to the attackers computer.
Blind Spoofing:
This process of IP spoofing is a lot harder than a non blind attack because the IP number is usually unreachable, but access can be gained through sending packets to the target computer in order to get the numbers. Most attacks that are done through this type of spoofing is making a new account to give the attacker full access to the system.
Man In The Middle:
This form of spoofing is where two legitimate parties are communicating and the attacker intercepts the communication allowing them to delete, change or coax personal information from one the parties without either of the parties knowing.
Denial Of Service Attacks:
This is where the attacker's main objection is to flood the victim with as much spoof data and traffic as possible to consume resources like bandwidth. To do this they need to make the attack go on as long as possible so the spoof the source IP address to make tracing the source as hard as possible.
Spoofing Email Addresses:
Spoofing email addresses is when the perpetrator uses someone else's email address in order to send their email so it can not be traced back to them. Email spoofing is commonly used when the person wants to send spam. Spam is what many call electronic junk mail but on a huge scale and usually floods your inbox with hundreds of messages at a time. Another reason many attackers use spoof email is so they can impersonate another person or company in order to gain your personal information like your bank account, passwords, social security and credit card numbers. This type of email is usually done in a way that asks you to confirm or verify your information and is the reason why email spoofing is one of the main causes of identity theft on the internet.
As you can see by the information above, internet spoof can be quite hazardous and is highly illegal and if you don't watch out for it, it could leave you a victim.