You can’t be an expert in the title industry today without an understanding of security threats and how to protect yourself and your clients from them. We’ve already listed tips to keep your home PC secure, and now we want to help you understand a current threat that targets users through email. This threat is called email spoofing.
What is email spoofing?
The title insurance industry, along with many others, has seen a rise in spoofed emails. Email spoofing is a forgery of an email header used to fool the receiver into thinking the message was sent by someone they know and trust and is therefore safe to open and respond to. If the receiver opens the email and responds, the person behind the scam can hack into personal data, financial information, and even install malicious software onto the computer.
Here’s an example: A realtor named Jane is selling a home to a client named Tim Jones. Jane and Tim have corresponded via email before, so Jane knows that Tim’s email is timjones@email.com. The day before Tim is supposed to close on his house, Jane receives an email from timjonees@gmail.com. If she glances quickly at the sender’s address then continues to read the body of the email, she might not notice that this is not really Tim’s email. If she then responds to this email, she is making herself vulnerable to a cyber attack that could put her and her client’s information at risk.
How you can protect yourself:
- Pay close attention to a sender’s email address. Get in the habit of reviewing every single letter and compare it to an address you know is real.
- Understand that even the closest proofreaders will still make mistakes, so invest in impersonation protection software.
- Continue to learn about email spoofing by reading the following articles and pay attention to security news: