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Email Spoofing (T1684.002) is a MITRE ATT&CK technique associated with Stealth . Adversaries may fake, or spoof, a sender’s identity by modifying the value of relevant email headers in order to establish contact with victims under false pretenses.  In addition to actual ema…
Email Spoofing (T1684.002) is a MITRE ATT&CK technique associated with Stealth. Adversaries may fake, or spoof, a sender’s identity by modifying the value of relevant email headers in order to establish contact with victims under false pretenses.(Citation: Proofpoint TA427 April 2024) In addition to actual email content, email headers (such as the FROM header, which contains the email address of the sender) may also be modified.
Attackers use Email Spoofing because it provides a reliable way to advance their objective within the Stealth tactic, often with a favorable balance of impact versus detectability on Linux, macOS, Office Suite, Windows environments. Defenders should assess this behavior in the context of the affected platform and adjacent activity rather than treating it as a standalone indicator.
Adversaries may fake, or spoof, a sender’s identity by modifying the value of relevant email headers in order to establish contact with victims under false pretenses.(Citation: Proofpoint TA427 April 2024) In addition to actual email content, email headers (such as the FROM header, which contains the email address of the sender) may also be modified. Email clients display these headers when emails appear in a victim's inbox, which may cause modified emails to appear as if they were from the spoofed entity.
Enterprise environments can use Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) as an email authentication protocol that references results of the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) configurations. SPF and DKIM are configured separately in DNS: SPF verifies that the sending server is authorized for the domain, while DKIM uses a digital signature to verify email integrity and domain authentication. Together, they validate email authenticity and specify how receiving servers should handle authentication failures. Without enforced identity authentication, adversaries may compromise the integrity of an authentication check with altered headers that would not have otherwise passed.(Citation: Cloudflare DMARC, DKIM, and SPF)(Citation: DMARC-overview)(Citation: Proofpoint-DMARC)
An example of a weak or absent DMARC policy is v=DMARC1; p=none; fo=1;. The p=none. The p=none indicates no action should be taken, and therefore no filtering action will take place, even if an email fails authentication checks (i.e., SPF and/or DKIM fail). When a DMARC policy indicates no action, the email will still be delivered to the victim’s inbox.(Citation: ic3-dprk)
Adversaries have abused weak or absent DMARC policies to circumvent authentication checks and conceal social engineering attempts. Adversaries can alter email headers to include legitimate domain names with fake usernames or impersonate legitimate users via Impersonation for Phishing. Additionally, adversaries may abuse Microsoft 365’s Direct Send functionality to spoof internal users by using internal devices like printers to send emails without authentication.(Citation: Barnea DirectSend)
No universal command represents Email Spoofing. Capture the exact command line, arguments, parent process, account, host, and execution time from the investigated environment; do not operationalize unverified examples.
| Event ID | Log Channel | What It Indicates |
|---|---|---|
| Environment-specific | Relevant Windows channel(s) | Correlate authentication, process, object-access, and configuration events with the observed execution context. |
| Sysmon Event ID | Name | Why It's Relevant Here |
|---|---|---|
| Environment-specific | Validate configured telemetry | Use process, network, file, registry, DNS, or image-load telemetry only when relevant and enabled. |
No MITRE detection guidance published for this technique.
Relevant ATT&CK Data Sources: N/A
A universal Sigma rule would create unreliable results because this technique has no single guaranteed observable. Build detection logic from a documented behavior and supported data source, scope it to the affected platform, and validate it against benign administrative activity before deployment.
Start with the data sources named in the detection section. Scope searches by asset, identity, and time window; correlate the primary behavior with preceding access and subsequent actions. A portable query is intentionally not provided where the technique lacks a universal schema or observable.