Spoofing and phishing continue to be some of the most popular tactics that phone scammers use to steal someone’s information. What’s more, many scammers even combine spoofing with phishing to make their scams even more complex. The good news is that if you know what to look for and how to spot both types of scams, defending yourself is a breeze.
In this article, we take you through spoofing vs phishing and cover everything you need to know about both scamming methods. Read on to learn more below.
Spoofing vs Phishing: What’s the Difference?
When you think of spoofing vs phishing it may seem similar, and while it is at first, there are some key differences you need to be aware of. Learn more about spoofing vs phishing below.
What Is Spoofing?
Spoofing is the practice of stealing someone’s phone number or email address to use maliciously, usually by scammers and sometimes telemarketers. The purpose of spoofing is to fool the person on the other line into believing that they’re someone else. Usually, scammers will pretend to be from a specific company or try to convince you that they’re a family member.
Spoofing can be hard to catch because scammers move fast. However, if you slow down and check the details of an email you’ll usually see things that are spelled wrong or phone numbers that don’t make too much sense.
Sometimes, people who spoof someone’s number will combine it with a phishing attack or use the information they got from spoofing to set up a phishing attack.
What Is Phishing?
Phishing is different from spoofing, but sometimes scammers will use a spoofed phone number or email to try and get you to open a phishing link. That said, phishing refers to the practice of sending someone an email or text message with the intent to have them open a malicious URL that steals information entered into the page.
For example, someone may pretend to be your bank, and then send you a fake link to a page that looks like your bank’s login portal. Then, when you enter your password the scammer steals it and uses it to get into your actual banking portal. The best way to spot these scams is to check the number or email thoroughly. If someone sends a text, don’t bother opening it, and if someone sends an email check the domain the @[example.com] to see if it matches the company they’re claiming to be.
Spoofing vs Phishing: How to Protect Yourself
In the past, it used to be hard to protect yourself against phishing and spoofing because it was hard to tell if it was a fake number. What’s more, when phishing first began people didn’t know what it was, which made it hard to stay safe. Thankfully, that’s a thing of the past and by following our tips below you’ll never fall for spoofing phishing attacks again.
1. Don’t Open Suspicious Links
The best way to protect yourself from phishing or spoofing is to not open anything from a sender you’re unfamiliar with. For example, if someone sends you a random email claiming that you won a prize, be wary of the link and never open it. If you’ve already opened the link, enable password protections on all your accounts and don’t enter any sensitive details or passwords on the page you’re brought to.
If someone is claiming to be from your company this is a little more tricky, so you’ll want to break out a reliable people search tool to ensure that they are who they claim to be.
2. Information.com
If you want to protect yourself from spoofing or phishing, one of the best things you can do is run someone’s email through an email reverse search engine. These tools will help you verify someone’s identity by combing through millions of public databases, and as a result, you can see if someone is who they’re claiming to be using their email address.
Therefore, if you have a link from an email or text, you can verify the details of the sender instead of blindly opening something. Not only does Information.com reveal basic information about the sender, but within the full report you can discover social media accounts, criminal records, business addresses, and much more.
Protect Yourself from Spoofing and Phishing Today
Whether you’re worried about a phishing email or someone using a spoofed number, or even a multi-layered attack using both, knowledge is power and everything we covered in this article will help you stay safe online.
If you’re ever worried, you can always confront the sender and make them verify your details or use a people search tool like Information.com to keep scams at bay. Overall, it’s not about spoofing vs phishing, it’s about you vs spoofers and phishers.
