What is header forging?
Every e-mail message consists of two parts, the body and the header. The header can be thought of as the envelope of the message, containing the address of the sender, the recipient, the subject, and other information. The body contains the actual text of the message as well as any attachments. Your e-mail program usually displays the following header information: • From: – The sender’s name and email address • To: – The recipient’s name and email address • Date: – The date when the message was sent • Subject: – The subject line Unethical advertisers and solicitors are able to conceal the source of their messages by a technique called header forging (also known as relaying). This process deflects complaints about the spam e-mail to an innocent relay site, rather than the spammer’s own Internet Service Provider (ISP). Spammers use this method to avoid losing their accounts and to evade e-mail filters.
