Difference between Spoofing and Phishing
Spoofing – A cyber-attack in which the attacker tries to steal the identity of a legitimate user and act as another person. Spoofing is a type of identity theft used to steal the information of a user by breaching the security of individuals or big systems. In this, attackers wear the mask of a legitimate user and communicate with the end user for its personal and sensitive information.
Phishing is a type of social engineering technique used by attackers to steal the user's personal information, including login credentials, credit or debit card details, etc. This is done by sending a forged email which looks like it came from a legitimate sender, but it's a trick to make the user click on a malicious link & downloading an attachment potentially laced with malware.
Spoofing | Phishing |
Types of spoofing are: - Email spoofing - Website spoofing - Caller ID spoofing - IP spoofing - DNS Server spoofing - URL spoofing - GPS spoofing | Types of phishing are: - Spear phishing - Whaling - Smishing - Vishing - Deceptive phishing - Session hijacking - Pharming - Clone phishing - Snowshoeing |
Spoofing can be a part of a phishing attack | Phishing is individually not a part of a spoofing |
Spoofing is designed to attain a new identity | Phishing chooses a particular target to get confidential information |
Spoofing doesn’t require fraud | It is a fraud as it is operated without user knowledge |
When it is operating, information is not theft by the user | It follows a fraudulent manner to theft the information |
Malicious software is needed to download on the victim’s computer | No need to download any malicious software in the system |
Spoofing is by doing these: - Hacking the whole website by modifying its IP address - Copy of a banking website seems to the legitimate, and one used to gather sensitive information from the victim and many more | Phishing emails have these types of terms: - Tax refunds - Payment failed - Click here - Click the link & download it - Verify your details - Offer!Phone call - Via SMS (text message) |
Method to deal with phishing ad spoofing
- Spell check the website, URL and emails
- Regularly checking the bank account and credit card statements
- Keep updated about the account transaction
- Use of original website mainly having “http” prefix before URL
- Never click the popups and link in the emails
- Never download or install unwanted or malicious software
- When an email looks suspicious, hover your mouse on the email link to be sure
- Installation of anti-malware, antivirus program and firewall to protect the system
- Personal data couldn't be divulged, whether online or on the phone
- Without double check surety no need to click any attachment or link
- If the user gets a suspicious call, it must check it back with the caller or, in the case of the email, must check the email's sender.
- Unfamiliar email addresses should be avoided.
- Pay attention to a grammatical errors within the content of the communication.
- Users must read the email content (sentence structure or odd sentence phrasing) and not react to words like "HURRY UP" or "MUST", etc.