Is spoofing a man-in-the-middle attack?

Spoofing attempts to position a bad actor in an ideal man-in-the-middle position by trying to pass as a trusted actor. However, as a general rule, MiM attacks do not involve human beings. So spoofing is a version of MiM in which the goal is to fool a human being in the communication chain.

Can spoofing lead to identity theft?

Yes, it can. That's the goal of phishing emails, which often spoof websites and email addresses.

Unfortunately, spoofing in and of itself is not illegal for the most part. The answer depends on the specifics of each individual case, but spoofing is no different than wearing a mask to rob a bank. It's not the mask that makes it dangerous or illegal.

What's the difference between spoofing and phishing?

Spoofing entails disguising oneself as someone else to gain access to information via email, calls, or IP address. Phishing, on the other hand, involves tricking someone into giving sensitive information, such as login credentials, through electronic communication, such as email or social media platforms.

What is Spoofing? Ways to Prevent It

Abeerah Hashim - Security Expert

Last updated: November 10, 2023

Read time: 17 minutes

This is an estimated reading time to let you know how long it will take you to read all the content on this particular PrivacySavvy.com page. However, it has a sneak peek, easy guide steps, and/or a quick list providing quick in-page navigations and easily-found answers if desired.

Spoofing is a family of hacking strategies that rely on social engineering to break the weakest link in most digital chains: a human being. It's an umbrella term covering many hacking techniques of varying sophistication.

Sneak peek at spoofing

Spoofing is an umbrella term that includes a wide variety of hacking techniques. However, most of them are forms of social engineering, meaning they need cooperation from the prospective victim. And that is the good news because awareness is a powerful weapon to fight the bane of spoofing. This guide elaborates on what spoofing is, its types, and how to prevent falling victim to spoofing attacks.

In cybersecurity slang, “spoofing” refers to a strategy in which a fraudster impersonates somebody else’s personality or credentials (personal or institutional) to earn a victim’s trust. The aim is to abuse that trust to meet the fraudster’s objective (access to a system, sensitive data, money, or installing malware).

What is spoofing?

Spoofing is an umbrella term rather than a specific type of attack or malware. It involves a cybercriminal attempting to pass as somebody else, such as a person or an organization that the victim would trust. The point is that, as the hacker earns that trust, he will use it to make the victim perform a series of unusual actions to help the hacker achieve a goal. So, whenever a digital criminal tries to pretend he’s somebody else, he’s spoofing.

Spoofing can happen through any communication channel available to both the victim and the scammer. It comes in many flavors, depending on the technological sophistication involved in each attempt.

Spoofing is an excellent example of “social engineering” in which the success of a criminal activity relies as much upon the ability of the criminal to psychologically manipulate the victim as on their degree of technical prowess. Kevin Mitnick is the most famous hacker whose exploits relied heavily on social engineering to succeed. These techniques play on the weakness of the human user as the most vulnerable link in the security chain because of fear, greed, or ignorance.