Recently, there has been an increase in the number of spoofing accounts targeting important people at different companies or organizations. Email spoofing is the creation of an email message with a forged sender address. A hacker can use websites and social media to find your social circle and your various email accounts. Once they build a list of people that might be associated with you, they’ll start a spoofing email in which they pretend to be you.
Here are some tips to reduce the chance of spoofing:
- Choose a Strong Password
- This will prevent your email address and contacts from being easily accessed, which would prevent the hacker from viewing your friends list.
- Check the Filters and Blocked Addresses Section of Email
- Make sure your email isn’t being automatically forwarded to unknown accounts using a “Forward to” filter or something similar
- Check filters that automatically delete messages with certain text like “hacked” or “not you”
- Update your Browser
- You can check the version by going to https://updatemybrowser.org/
- File a Report
- Contact the appropriate authorities, and possibly the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
