Terrorist Using Spoofing Methods to Hide Their Identity

According to the cyber crime police of India, spoofing of IP addresses is now a significant security threat challenging the Indian security agencies. Recently, spoofed e-mails, technically described as phishing e-mails, were received when the serial bomb blasts took place in Ahmedabad.

According to the Internet crime bodies, they have managed to track down the Indian Mujahideen e-mail. The origin of its IP address was in Navi Mumbai, say security officials, as reported by howrah.org on August 2, 2008.

Meanwhile, according to security analysts, spoofed e-mails involve messages with false headers that misguide the recipient about the origin of the message as a result he is led to an incorrect IP address. Terrorists use such spoofing methods of e-mail and IP addresses to hide their identities, given the fact that it is difficult to unfold impersonation cases.

Thus, according to the security experts, it is necessary to prevent spoofing attacks by stopping them at the filtering router of the network. Also, by implementing appropriate authentication and encryption methods, spoofing attacks can be considerably reduced.

Further, the analysts disclosed that spoofing attempts are commonly used along with phishing frauds. The site that is spoofed normally designed to resemble the original one, sometimes by copying contents from it in order to lend it a more legitimate appearance.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to safeguard users against spoofing attacks that lead to phishing, security agents advise users not to take for granted the content in the URL bar as indicating the real Website.

Moreover, as in the Ahmedabad blasts, some senior officials in the police department said that terrorists in several past incidences used Internet cafes to communicate with their counterparts. Also, they have been developing new techniques of phishing. Thus, for sending the threat e-mails, they had used techniques of spoofing IP addresses together with e-mail spoofing.

In the meantime, B. Prasada Rao, Commissioner of Police, Hyderabad, India has asked the general public to be very careful with spoofed e-mails that try to capture personal details of an Internet surfer, as reported by howrah on August 2, 2008.

Related article: TRUSTe Certified Websites May Still Contain Malware

» SPAMfighter News - 8/19/2008