Email is one of the most essential technologies that are used in today’s business environment. But despite all the advantages that email brings to the world, there is a pretty significant disadvantage – spam and spoofed emails. Spam is generally considered annoying but mostly harmless, while spoofed emails are much more dangerous.
Is spam bad for my business?
Most of us are used to thinking of spam as one of those annoying, yet unavoidable nuisances in life. But when you’re talking about spam that your employees receive, the reality quickly gets scary – an average email user receives about 16 malicious spam messages every month, which adds up to just under 200 potentially dangerous emails a year. If you take into account all employees at a company, the numbers quickly get into the thousands – that’s thousands of chances for security breaches and financial losses. This means that spam is not harmless by any means – it is a huge danger to your company that has to be dealt with professionally.
How do spam and spoof hackers operate?
The main goal of a spoofed or spam email is to mislead the person who receives the email about its origin. This means that the recipient of the email will think that the message is coming from a legitimate source – an organization, government body or person, while it’s coming from a scammer instead.
There are generally two types of spoofed email attacks – in the first one, the scammers send spoofed emails to customers of a certain company while pretending that the email is coming from this company. This type of attack causes lots of damage to the company’s reputation and trustworthiness in the eyes of customers.
The other type of spoofing attack targets employees of the company. This type of attack is especially dangerous because it can let malware onto the company’s devices and networks.
Frequently asked questions about spoofed emails and spam
What is the difference between spam and spoofed emails?
Email spoofing and spam can exist separately or be done together. Email spoofing refers to the malicious practice of disguising an email’s sender to appear like it’s coming from someone else, while spam is the practice of sending out a mass email to thousands of users at once.
How can spam and spoofed emails harm my company?
As you might have guessed, there’s a myriad of dangers associated with spoofed emails and spam. First of all, these emails can become a gateway for malware that can infect your company’s networks and systems. Secondly, employees can easily become victims of social engineering and phishing attacks. Finally, even seemingly harmless spam emails can waste a lot of your employees’ time.
How to protect my company from spoofed messages?
The best way to protect your business from spoofed emails is to educate your employees about different types of scams, social engineering and hacking attempts. HackControl can help train and test your employees to get them ready for any sort of attack.
