What is Domain Spoofing? 

Domain Spoofing is a type of phishing where a cybercriminal imitates a well-known business, person or brand by creating fake websites or email domains to trick people into trusting them. 

Domain Spoofing and E-Mail Spoofing are often used together in order to lure potential victims to an illegitimate website. 

Different Types of Domain Spoofing 

Website Spoofing 

With website spoofing, cybercriminals register a domain name that is very similar to the legitimate domain. Once visitors arrive on the spoofed website, they may be asked to give out sensitive information such as credit card information or login credentials, or offered to download malware through a malicious link. With these phishing attacks, hackers and scammers can gain access to your system or commit fraud and impersonation. 

Email Spoofing 

A common type of cyberattack, with email spoofing fraudsters are able to send out phishing emails that may seem to be coming from a familiar sender address such as your work organization, a friend or family member, a store that you have shopped with before or a government agency. These spoofed emails usually contain a malicious link aimed to lure the visitor to visit an illegitimate website or access sensitive information. 

DNS Spoofing 

Also called DNS poisoning, in DNS spoofing traffic that is intended to go to a legitimate website is redirected to another website. This can also be part of a so-called DDoS attack (Distributed Denial-of-Service Attack) which is used to flood a server with so much traffic that legitimate users are unable to connect to the site. 

What can you do against Domain Spoofing? 

To keep your business and your servers safe against domain spoofing, you can take several measures. For example, you could consider implementing DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) for your domain portfolio, which is an email authentication protocol that verifies the sender of an email. To use DMARC, a DMARC record has to be published in the DNS (Domain Name System) and a DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) or SPF (Sender Policy Framework) protocol needs to be set up for your email domain. 

Need help understanding the risks and implementing these critical cybersecurity measures? We are here to help you.