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Software Engineering vocabulary · APIs, Networking and Security

Spoofing

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

/ˈspuːfɪŋ/nounCommon term

In software engineering, spoofing means: Faking an identity or source, such as an email sender, a phone number, a website or an IP address, so that a message or connection seems to come from someone trusted.

In Turkish: sahtecilik, kimlik sahteciliği, taklit etme

How it is used

Used with many objects: email spoofing, caller ID spoofing, domain spoofing, ARP spoofing. The verb is 'spoof', and a spoofed email is one with a forged sender. Email protections such as SPF, DKIM and DMARC are designed against sender spoofing.

Example sentences

  1. The invoice email used spoofing to look as if it came from our CEO.

  2. Since we enforced DMARC, spoofing of our domain has dropped sharply.

Common collocations

  • email spoofing
  • spoofed sender
  • caller ID spoofing
  • domain spoofing
  • DMARC policy
  • phishingA trick in which attackers send fake emails, messages or websites that look trustworthy, hoping people will click a link, open a file or reveal their passwords.
  • social engineeringManipulating people, rather than breaking technology, to make them reveal information, give access or take an action that helps an attacker.
  • man-in-the-middle attackAn attack in which someone secretly places themselves between two communicating parties so that they can read or change the traffic passing between them.
  • authenticationThe process of checking who a user or system is, for example with a password, a token or a fingerprint, before giving access.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: APIs, Networking and Security

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