Spoofed Emails Are On the Rise... And They're Getting Harder to Spot

Spoofed emails are no longer easy to catch. They're not coming from "support@micros0ft.com" anymore. They look like your CFO, your IT vendor, or a colleague you emailed yesterday. And they're landing in inboxes at an increasing rate.

Over the past week organizations across the US are reporting a noticeable uptick in these attacks, with consequences ranging from fraudulent payments, compromised accounts, and a growing distrust of everyday business communication. Email spoofing has evolved well beyond misspelled domains. Today's attacks are more sophisticated, using a combination of tactics that make fraudulent messages nearly indistinguishable from legitimate ones.

Attackers are now leveraging misconfigured email authentication and forged sender addresses that pass basic security checks by mimicking trusted systems. The result is an email that looks completely legitimate. They include the correct name, correct address, no formatting issues, sometimes even appearing as part of an existing thread. For end users, there's often nothing obvious to flag.

Why the Spike Is Happening Now

Several converging factors are driving the current rise in spoofed email activity:

• Seasonal business cycles: tax preparation, payment processing, and quarterly reporting create predictable windows of high-value activity that attackers exploit
• High trust in familiar senders: employees are conditioned to act quickly on emails from executives or vendors
• Authentication gaps: many small and mid-sized businesses still lack full SPF, DKIM, and DMARC coverage
• Increased global cyber activity tied to broader geopolitical instability

Four Steps to Strengthen Your Email Security Now

1. Enable Anti-Impersonation Protections

If your organization uses Microsoft 365 or a similar platform, make use of built-in anti-impersonation policies. Protect executive names and your domain specifically, configure alerts for suspicious sending behavior, and enable external email banners so employees can immediately identify messages originating outside your organization.

2. Audit How Email Is Sent on Your Behalf

Take a full inventory of every system sending email under your domain. Then move as many of those systems as possible to authenticated sending methods. Any legacy configurations like Direct Send should be restricted or eliminated, with IP-based access controls applied where applicable.

3. Train Employees on Simple, Repeatable Behaviors

Technology controls help, but your team is still a critical line of defense. Effective employee guidance includes teaching your team to verify unusual requests through a different channel, be skeptical of urgency, and report suspicious emails immediately.

4. Don't Wait for an Incident to Act, Contact InfoPathways Today

Spoofed email attacks are increasing in both volume and sophistication. The best time to close authentication gaps, tighten access controls, and train employees is before something goes wrong.

InfoPathways helps businesses across Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and beyond assess, configure, and maintain email security environments that reduce spoofing risk. Whether you need a DMARC audit, help securing your Microsoft 365 environment, or a broader cybersecurity review, our team is ready to help. Contact InfoPathways today to get started.