Hiding behind the email

You just got an email and it looks like it is really from a local business or organization that you know. Is it possible that it could be from a scammer? The answer is yes. Scammers use a technique called spoofing to do this.

What is spoofing? Well, if you want to go and read the technical definition of it, you can go here, but for those of you who are like me and some of the technical talk starts to sound like "blah, blah, blah" here are the spoofing basics.

Spoofing is when the person who sent the email makes it appear like the email cam from a different email address. One of the clues would be if the From line in the email has a different address than the Reply To line of the email.

Why would anyone want to do this? Well, the scammers take on many different profiles, and since they are trying to gain your trust, and your money, they have to make it LOOK like they really are who they say that they are. If they can spoof an email address of a well know business, and in their email they say they are with that business, there are some people who are not as internet savvy that will believe that the scammer is really who they say they are or associated with the company they claim to be with simply because the email address appears to be from that company.

Email spoofing is a common tool used by internet scammers, since it allows them to hide behind the identity of another person or company.