Spoofing
Have you ever had an experience of buying a branded products for very cheap price? Do you know I bought “Lewis” T-shirt for just $3 from a flea market and I am still wearing it for my friends party. 😜 We all knew that no branded products will be available for cheap cost. But, what if you buy a fake product in the price of branded ones? That’s all the idea behind Spoofing.
Spoofing is one of the online threats which means creating a fake website which looks similar like a branded ones and use it for fraudulent purposes like stealing passwords and banking details. Now a days, hackers are so smart to spoof people. Before jump into spoofing, let me tell you one fact about human eyes. We all knew that human eyes are the vital organ in our body. Based on the color, shape and size our eyes will memorize the object we see. First our eyes will analyse the object and based on the result our brain will say whether the viewing object is true or not based on past experiences. But we can trick our eyes by showing fake products which look exactly like original. That’s the reason why my friends still believe I am wearing branded shirts but truly I am not.
Spoofing — An inside look
In my social network, I have tried to spoof my friends just by pretending a world leader praised my article work. I made it for fun. But most people easily identified that the tweet wasn’t real, because logically no world leader would appreciate a citizen without an achievement being made.
However, it was little shocking to see some of the my friends actually believed and inquired about it. Similarly, what if I tell you the website you are using for online banking is not real?
In recent times, there are increasing number of reports have been registered about spoofing. The attacker highly targets the online shopping websites and they will create a fake checkout page. After shopping when user try to enter the credit card details, they believe that they are entering it in real page, but actually they will enter it in attacker’s fake checkout page. If you submit the details, then you will be hacked!! But if you are trained to differentiate between original and unoriginal websites, then you will mostly avoid of getting hacked.
Check your URL address before login
Always check your URL before login to any website. Just check the correct spelling. Some fraudulent websites look similar but they may have spelling errors. e.g., amozon.com, mintrra.com etc.,
Check your “Lock” and “URL” before checkout
Don’t forget to check the URL and “Lock”(🔒) icon near the website address especially in “check out” and “login” page. Always remember that your “check out” and “login” page address will be similar to the website address which you are using for online shopping. e.g., www.amazon.com/signin, www.amazon.com/checkout etc., Some websites rush the user to enter the credit card details as soon as possible else they won’t get the discount. No trusted website will urge you to do that. So, before entering your card details check the URL and lock icon without fail.
Give priority to your instinct
A good website always specific about their product and it will have clear information about payment policies. Check out the grammar errors in the website as well. Feel your instinct. Most of the times your instinct always right. If you still have doubts, just ask your friends about the website and it’s discounts. Do your research and compare with other websites as well.
Many of the real world problems could be avoided by proper training and good research. Spending a few minutes of time to anything will help you to avoid getting trapped in any threats.
