Spoofing is a technique that is used by spammers as a method to mask their true identities, which would be a dead giveaway to the fact that you are being sent spam mail. Spoofing email marketing addresses is a technique that has been in use for many years and most of us who dare to venture into the spam folders of our mailboxes would notice that there are a whole bunch of mails with people with just one name and no email addresses. The more sinister side of spoofing rears its head when you see the names of people that you know in the spam folder. This might just make you immediately open the mail to check the content or even move it to your inbox. When you do this, you end up marking a spam mail as safe.

Spammers spoof using a variety of techniques but probably the worst is when they deploy worms on your computer networks. A worm is a computer program that will install itself on a system and then render your computer open to manipulation by a spammer or hacker. This is one of the most popular techniques that are used by spammers to get email addresses. This technique involves tricking you or someone on your network to download and install a program that contains the worm. Once installed the worm travels through the network and sends address book data back to the author of the worm or anyone who knows how to contact the worm. All the addresses within a network can end up in the hands of a spammer this way.

Spoofing email marketing addresses are a method of trickery that is aimed at either trying to fool the spam filter into allowing a spam mail into your inbox or to fool you into opening a mail and sending the spam mail wrongly into an inbox. This is quite a simple and ingenious technique but one that is frowned upon by nearly all the countries and ISPs that follow local anti-spam laws and legislation. This technique is also popular among spammers who propagate email fraud. This is where spoofing as a technique can be seen at its best with mails coming to you stating that you have won a state lottery or that you have won a prize from the Microsoft Corporation.

Spoofing cannot really be stopped in the truest sense of the term. The only thing that can be done is to protect your networks so well by using antivirus software that worms don’t end up on your network. In email marketing, there will be times when you are constrained by a lack of response to your bulk email campaigns and this might cause you to fall prey to the temptation of using downloadable spoofing software to help your cause. Rest assured that this is an illegal technique and most spam filters can usually figure out a spoofed email address. This can end up with your company being blacklisted and your site taken down by an ISP.