1. What is Email Spoofing?
Email spoofing is when a bad actor pretends their email is coming from a different organization, person, or brand than who it’s really from. The intentions behind spoofing are usually malicious:
- Obtaining financial information
- Stealing personal information from recipients
- Getting people to take actions they wouldn’t if they knew the true sender
- Damaging brand image for malicious purposes
2. Real-World Impact
This is a serious issue. We’ve worked with many clients and e-commerce shops over the years where email spoofers have:
- Sent messages to the brand’s customer base and subscribers
- Targeted random people
- Seriously damaged the brand’s long-term trajectory
- Hurt relationships with customers
- Damaged brand perception
3. Protection Through Authentication
One of the best ways to protect against email spoofing is proper email authentication setup. These records serve multiple purposes:
- Security
- Sender identification
- Spoofing prevention
- Protection against phishing attacks
4. The Role of DMARC
DMARC is your core defense record. It lets you tell recipient inboxes what to do when they get emails claiming to be from you that fail authentication. DMARC works with SPF and DKIM as part of the authentication process – this trio forms your main defense against spoofing attempts.
5. How DMARC Helps
When you increase DMARC policy strictness (from none to quarantine to reject), you:
- Regulate how much penetration spoofers can achieve
- Control what happens to fake emails
- Protect your domain from unauthorized use
6. Important Note About Protection
While there’s no foolproof defense against email spoofers (they can find ways to work around the system), you should still:
- Make sure your email authentication records are properly configured
- Keep everything “dialed in” and up to date
- Make your brand a harder target for spoofers
This due diligence makes you less attractive to attackers – they might move on to easier targets instead.
7. Summary
Email spoofing is an unfortunate reality in today’s world, typically carried out by malicious actors. Your best defense is proper email authentication setup – while not perfect, it’s a strong defense against these bad actors and helps protect your brand in the long term.