how to protect yourself from spoofing
there are several ways to protect yourself from would be spoofing scammers 3if you think you ve been spoofed you can file a complaint at the consumer complaint center of the federal communications commission fcc 1 the fcc doesn t act on individual complaints but will add that information to its database if you ve lost money because of spoofing the fcc recommends contacting your local police department types of spoofingemail spoofing is the act of sending emails with false sender addresses typically as part of a phishing attack intended to steal your data ask for money or infect your computer with malware this tactic is used by both dishonest advertisers and outright thieves the spoofer sends emails with a falsified from line to trick victims into believing that the message is from a friend their bank or some other legitimate source any email that asks for your password social security number or any other personal information could be a trick these emails typically include a combination of deceptive features including 3sometimes referred to as smishing text message sms spoofing is similar to email spoofing the text message appears to come from a legitimate source such as your bank or a doctor s office it may request that you call a specific phone number or click on a link within the message to get you to divulge personal information here the spoofer falsifies the phone number from which they are calling in the hope of getting you to take their call on your caller id it might appear that the call is coming from a legitimate business or government agency such as the internal revenue service irs note that the irs says it doesn t call taxpayers to tell them they owe taxes without first sending them a bill in the mail spoofing comes in many forms but the goal is usually to trick people into divulging personal information that criminals can use this is a type of caller id spoofing in which the call appears to be from someone you know or a person who lives near you the fcc says that the truth in caller id act prohibits anyone from transmitting misleading or inaccurate caller id information with the intent to defraud cause harm or wrongly obtain anything of value if they re caught and that s a big if the spoofer can face penalties of up to 10 000 for each violation 4url spoofing happens when scammers set up a fraudulent website to obtain information from victims or install malware on their computers for instance victims might be directed to a site that looks like it belongs to their bank or credit card company and be asked to log in using their user id and password if the person falls for it and logs in the scammer could then use the information that the victim typed in to log into the real site and access their accounts gps spoofing has a somewhat different purpose it attempts to trick a gps receiver into believing it is in a different location or headed in a different direction by broadcasting bogus gps signals or other means at this point gps spoofing is more likely to be used in warfare or by gamers e g pok mon go players than to target individual consumers although the technology exists to make anyone vulnerable these spoofing attacks involve three players the victim the entity that the victim is trying to communicate with and the man in the middle who intercepts the communications the spoofer attempts to eavesdrop on the exchange or impersonate one of the parties the goal is to intercept information that is useful sensitive or potentially profitable e g login credentials and credit card information stolen information can be used to approve financial transactions for identity theft or it may be sold to a third party 3this type of scam happens when someone wants to disguise or hide the location from where they re sending or requesting data so they replace the source internet protocol ip address with a fake one the spoofed ip address looks like it s from a trusted source the original ip address while masking its true identity an unknown third party 5 virtual private network vpn services allow users to mask their ip and location which can also be used for legitimate reasons such as privacy or streaming content went traveling overseas this is the latest form of spoofing with facial spoofing a criminal uses a person s face and simulates their facial biometrics by using a photo or video to replace their identity facial spoofing is most commonly used to commit bank identity fraud however it is also used in money laundering spoofing involves faking one s identity and can be used for various attacks such as identity theft phishing is one such use of spoofing that attempts to steal somebody s personal information or credentials by having them volunteer that information from a nefarious source that looks legit for instance a phishing email may appear to come from your bank but the link inside would direct you to a phony version of the bank s website if you enter your credentials they are subsequently turned over to the attacker 