SPOOF

                In general, the term spoof refers to hacking or deception that imitates another person, software program, hardware device, or computer, with the intentions of bypassing security measures. One of the most commonly known spoofing is IP spoofing.

IP spoofing:

                 A method of bypassing security measures on a network or a method of gaining access to a network by imitating a different IP address. Some security systems have a method of helping to identifying a user by his or her IP address or IP address range. If the attacker spoofs their IP address to match this criteria it may help bypass security measures. This technique is also used to deceive a web page, poll, or other Internet contest into thinking the user is someone else allowing him or her to get more hits or falsely increase a votes rank.

E-mail or address spoofing:

               Process of faking a senders e-mail address. This form of spoofing is used to fool the recipient of the e-mail into thinking someone else sent them the message. This is commonly used to bypass spam filters or to trick the user into thinking the e-mail is safe when in reality it contains an attachment that is infected with a virus or spam.

• Getting bounce back e-mails from addresses I don't know.

 Phone number spoofing:

                It is possible for anyone to fake the number or areacode they are calling from. This type of spoofing is done by telemarkers to hide their true identity and by hackers to gain access to unprotected phone voicemail messages.

 Web page spoof:

                 A fake web page or spoof on another commonly visited page. For example a malicious user may create a spoof page of Microsoft's, eBay, PayPal or Google's home page that looks identical but is hosted on a different server. These pages are commonly used in phishing e-mails to extract information from the user such as usernames and passwords or to send malicious files to them. Web page spoofing may also be done through IP cloaking.