What is the term for making the sending address in an email appear legitimate to the recipient?

• A. Sender Spoofing
• B. URL Shorteners
• C. Email Artifacts
• D. Web Artifacts

Answer: (A)

Sender spoofing is the act of making the sending address appear legitimate to the recipient. Attackers manipulate the address shown in the From field or the SMTP envelope sender so the message looks as if it came from a trusted organization. This leverages the user’s trust in familiar names, making it easier to trick them into clicking links or providing credentials. Defenses rely on email authentication methods like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to verify that the message is authorized to be sent from that domain and to ensure the domain in the envelope aligns with the displayed From. When these checks fail or the alignment doesn’t match, the email can be marked suspicious or blocked.

URL shorteners are about hiding link destinations, not forging the sender identity. Email Artifacts and Web Artifacts aren’t standard terms for this technique and don’t describe the act of making the sending address appear legitimate.