// March 7th, 2008 // No Comments » // Abuse, DNS, Domain Names, Email, For Geeks, Hosting, Useful, Web Hosting, web tools
Email spoofing may occur in different forms, but all have a similar result: a user receives email that appears to have originated from one source when it actually was sent from another source. Email spoofing is often an attempt to trick the user into making a damaging statement or releasing sensitive information (such as passwords).
Examples of spoofed email that could affect the security of your site include:
- email claiming to be from a system administrator requesting users to change their passwords to a specified string and threatening to suspend their account if they do not do this
- email claiming to be from a person in authority requesting users to send them a copy of a password file or other sensitive information
Using a Catch-All Email Address and Spoofing
One thing I recommend is that you do not use a catch-all email address for your domain name. Creating a catch-all email address, means anything@yourdomain.com will be forwarded to you; it doesn’t have to be an actual email address it just has to be sent to @yourdomain.com and any email that cannot find a valid recipient and would therefore bounce under normal circumstance gets successfully delivered without returning an error message to the original sender which sounds great but it also gives spammers a wide open door to attack you and use your domain name to send spam.
If you want to use a catch all email address then you should add a SPF record to your DNS that identifies the mail servers that are allowed to send email representing your domain name. Any receiving server that supports SPF/SenderID will check for the SPF record and reject the e-mail that didn’t come from a permitted mail server.
SPF (Sender Policy Framework) record will certainly help the spoofing situation (you can read more about how this works here but keep in mind this is not completely foolproof yet because it also requires the receiving organization supports SPF or SenderID and unfortunately SPF is still not supported by everyone.
If you don’t directly manage your DNS record (most don’t) or you don’t know what any of this means, the quickest way to a solution is to call the tech support department of your Internet Service Provider or email hosting provider. Tell them about the problem you’re having, that you think it might have something to do with SPF, and let them help you.
Forms of Cybersquatting
Cybersquatting – registering a domain name using a trademarked name or company name that is not yours with the goal to make money off the company name, personal name or trademark. Sad thing is not all companies or people have a trademark so a cybersquatter can easily register a domain name using their name and then force them to buy it from them in order to use it. There are laws to protect people from cybersquatter but it is a very expensive to fight. (see more info on Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy )
Typosquatting - registering a domain name that is a close to the spelling of or a common misspelling of a trademarked brand name or a well known name. For example: Gooogle.com
Domain tasting is when someone registers domain name(s) and then keeps only the ones that have economic value. If they find that the domain name does not make them money then they have the domain name refunded using the five day “grace period”. Domain tasting should not be confused with domain kiting.
Domain kiting is the process of deleting a domain name during the five-day grace period and then immediately re-registering it for another five-day period. This process is repeated any number of times with the end result of having the domain registered without ever actually paying for it.
Phishing is an attempt to criminally and fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as user names, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy website. eBay, PayPal and online banks are common targets. You’ll usually find phishing links sent out in an email or an instant message that will direct users to enter details at a website that “looks” like eBay for example. Always type the domain name you want to visit directly into your address bar. Never click on a link to a site where you plan on entering your personal information unless your 100% sure it’s legit and you can never be 100% sure so just type it in. It’s easy to hide where the link your clicking on is actually going and it’s also very easy to design websites that look and act exactly like your banks site or ebays site. Be safe!
