Email Spoofing and Email Impersonation in Cybersecurity

Organizations have become prime targets of email spoofing and email impersonation techniques, which are the major reasons for financial loss and reputational damage. By using technology like AI and Machine Learning, attackers replicate real email domains, making it very difficult to differentiate between real and fake emails.

According to the report by STATIONX.NET, phishing is implicated in 36% of all data breaches. This cybersecurity incident highlights the continuous growth of phishing emails. Organizations are badly affected as their employees and senior management are unaware of modern cyberattacks. There is a need to provide security awareness training for employees and make people aware of human errors, which are also responsible for increasing cyber threats.

To reduce the chances of becoming a victim of digital platforms, organizations need to make employees aware of email spoofing and email impersonation attacks. This needs to be done to ensure there is no confusion about various email-based attacks.

In this blog, we will be discussing the difference between email spoofing and email impersonation to clear all your confusion related to email-based attacks.

What is Email Spoofing?

It is a technique used by attackers to forge a sender’s email address to appear as a legitimate source. Spoofing impersonation often involves the use of technical manipulation, such as altering email headers. Attackers use techniques like manipulating the “From” address or using SMTP commands.

Due to email spoofing attacks, the chances of unauthorized transactions, data breaches, and malware downloads increase.

To detect spoofed emails, look for mismatched email addresses and unexpected requests or demands for confidential details.

Example of Email Spoofing 

Fraudulent Compliance Alert

From: Imagix Compliance Team <[email protected]> (Spoofed sender appears real but is fake)

To: Employee [email protected]

Subject: Mandatory Security Compliance Update – Immediate Action Required!

Dear Employee,

As part of Imagix’s ongoing cybersecurity compliance updates, all employees are required to complete the Mandatory Security Compliance Review by the end of the day.

Failure to complete this review may result in temporary account suspension or restricted access to Imagix’s internal systems.

🔗Complete Compliance Review

 (Malicious link impersonating Imagix’s website)

Please log in using your Imagix credentials and complete the verification process. This is to internal security policies and ISO 27001 compliance requirements.

If you have already completed this, kindly ignore this email.

Best regards,

Team Imagix

Imagix Compliance Team

Security Helpdesk: (213) 596-487

Spoofing Indicators

• The email uses a fake sender email “[email protected]” but while checking the email headers it will show a different sender domain.
• The mail shows a sense of urgency and enforce a deadline which looks suspicious.
• Uses a fake domain (imagix-compliance.com) which tries to mimic imagix.com.
• It mentions fake policy references such as “ISO 27001 compliance” to make email look legitimate.
• Uses generic greetings in an important mail highlight that the mail is fake and suspicious

What is Email Impersonation?

In this type of cyberattack, attackers act as a legitimate source and use this process to deceive recipients. This type of attack is intended to target senior management and employees who have access to confidential details of company or financial assets.

Cybercriminals use impersonation techniques for harming organizations to trick their employees into revealing sensitive details of the organization to make them victims of financial fraud and reputational damages.

To reduce email impersonation attacks, there is a need to implement strong email security standards and train employees on phishing mail simulations to enhance identification and response capability.

Example of Email Impersonation 

From: Michael Johnson [email protected] (Fake Sender)

To: Emily Carter [email protected]

Subject: Urgent: Payment Processing Required

Dear Emily,

I hope this message finds you well. I need your immediate assistance in processing a wire transfer as soon as possible. 

Below are the details for your reference:

Recipient Name: Summit Advisory Group

Bank Name: Liberty National Bank

Account Number: 123456789

Routing Number: 021000021

Transfer Amount: $50,000

Payment Reference: Strategic Partnership Fee

Please treat this matter with the utmost confidentiality. Once the transaction is completed, kindly confirm by replying to this email.

Looking forward to your prompt response.

Best Regards,
Michael Johnson
CEO, Stratford Corporation

Email Impersonation Indicators:

• Using fraudulent email domains to act as a trusted or known source.
• The mail shows urgency and confidentiality to avoid the verification process
• Requesting a large fund without prior approval seems to be suspicious.

Difference Between Email Impersonation and Email Spoofing

The following table shows the difference between Email Impersonation vs Email Spoofing:-

Feature	Email Impersonation	Email Spoofing
Definition	A similar-looking email address is used by an attacker to impersonate a legitimate sender.	An attacker forges the email header so that it appears to be from a legitimate sender.
Method Used	Use of lookalike domains (Example: [email protected] → [email protected]).	Alters the “From” field to display a fraudulent sender id (e.g., [email protected], even though it’s not sent from this domain).
Detection	It can be identified by carefully analyzing the sender’s email address.	Difficult to detect without email authentication checks such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
Mitigation	User education, email filtering and domain monitoring can be beneficial.	Implementation of DMARC, SPF and DKIM for authenticating emails can be helpful.
Major Targets	Business executives, employees, and customers.	Mass email recipients, including organizations and individuals.

Strategies to Prevent Email Impersonation and Email Spoofing Attacks

To stop the chances of becoming a victim of spoofing and impersonation attacks, there is a need to adopt prevention strategies to strengthen the security posture of the organization. Following are the prevention strategies mentioned below:-

• Implementation of Email Authentication Protocols

Organizations need to implement DMARC, SPF, and DKIM (email authentical protocols)

• Enabling Email Header Analysis

There is a need to train employees on checking email headers for suspicious sender’s details.

• Verify Unusual Requests 

There is a need to check and confirm urgent payment or confidential data requests via secondary channels (call, in-person).

• Use of Email Security Solutions

Deploying Advent email threat protection tools for detecting and blocking impersonation attempts by hackers.

• Monitoring and blocking Lookalike Domains

There is a need to check spoofed domains with grammatical errors and need to block them.

• Conduction of Security Awareness Training for Employees

Educating employees through phishing simulations and providing security awareness training can enhance identification and responding capability.

• Limiting Senior Executives Email Usages

Organizations need to avoid public listing of senior executive emails to reduce the chances of impersonation and BEC attacks.

• Implementing MFA

By using MFA, it could help to add an extra layer of security.

• Setting Up Payment & Data Access Protocols 

Financial departments of the organization need to implement a strict approval process for payment transactions and confidential data requests.

• Monitoring of Email Logs

There is a need to review email logs for suspicious and unauthorized login attempts or email forwarding rules.

Conclusion

With increasing email threats, organizations need to be very careful while handling threats like spoofing and impersonation attempts. There is a need to adopt security awareness training and strengthen the defense mechanism of email workflow. Organizations need advanced email security solutions to tackle email-based threats.

To reduce email impersonation and email spoofing attacks, organizations can implement email authentication and email security solutions such as TDMARC, which provides complete email protection. It contains features like Smart SPF, Smart DKIM, BIMI Management, Lookalike domain visibility, MTA-STS, and Real-Time Notification to meet modern email security standards.

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