“From” spoofing is a technique used by spammers to make it seem like their emails come from you, even though you didn’t send them. But how do they do it? Do they hack into your email account? The answer is no.
“From” spoofing involves changing the “From” field in the email header to make it appear as if the email is from a different sender. Spammers don’t need access to your account to do this. All they need is your email address.
Your email account and email address are not the same thing. Your email account is what you use to access your emails, while your email address is the information that allows the email system to route messages to your inbox.
To fake the “From” address, spammers create an email account using their own email account information, but with your email address in the “From” field. They can get your email address from public postings, forwarded emails, or other sources.
Addresses, accounts and sending email
Let’s take a quick look at how you create an account in an email program like Microsoft Office’s Outlook.
When you add a new mail account, you provide three key pieces of information.
- “Your Name:” Called the “display name”, this is used as the name that will be displayed on the “From:” line in emails you send. Normally you would want this to be your own name, but in reality, it can be whatever you like.
- “Email address:” This is used as the email address that will be displayed on the “From:” line in emails you send. Normally, you would want this to be your email address, but in reality, it can be whatever you like.
- “User Name:” Along with the password, this identifies you to the mail service, grants you access to your mail box for incoming mail, and authorizes you to send email.
“From” Spoofing
To send email appearing to be from someone else, all you need to do is create an email account in your favorite email program, and use your own email account information while specifying someone else’s email address.
And that — or its equivalent — is exactly what spammers do.
However, not all email programs and services support “From” spoofing. Some web-based email services don’t allow you to specify a different email address to send from. Also, some ISPs check the “From” address on outgoing email to prevent spoofing. And even if you can change the “From” address, other email headers may reveal your account information or the email service you used to send the email.
Attempting to spoof someone else’s email address could be illegal, depending on the laws in your jurisdiction and your intent. Spammers, though, use botnets or zombies to send emails, which are harder to trace back to them.
To protect your account from being used for “From” spoofing, you can enable two-factor authentication, use strong passwords, and avoid posting your email address publicly. You can also report any suspicious emails to your email service provider or mark them as spam.
