E-mail Spoofs are e-mails that are used by spammers or other fraudulent companies wherein certain parts of the email are altered to appear as if the e-mail comes from a different source. The most common alteration done is the e-mail address of course. A common activity used by spammers, it is best to understand what e-mail spoofs are.

E-mail spoofs may come from two sources:

E-mail Worms. E-mail worms access address books on infected computers. It send e-mails and copies of itself to another address claiming to be you. You know if you receive one if  from looking at the email, you’ll see that it came from a computer whose address book contained not only your e-mail address but that of whoever is listed as the sender.

Phishing e-mails. Some examples are the ones that purportedly come from banks which ask for your bank account or credit card account information because they have idiotically lost your details due to a software upgrade. These e-mails often have links included in the body where it will direct you to the online form you need to fill out.

E-mail spoofing cannot be prevented per se. However, worms can be deflected if you have an effective anti-virus software and if you keep that software updated. For phishing e-mails. Call up your bank or credit card company and ask if this is true. Don’t just clicking on links and filling out forms that you are unverified.