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All you need to know about phone spoofing: what is it and how to protect yourself from the growing scams

Knowing the meaning of phone spoofing is nowadays increasingly important to avoid falling for the scams of malicious attackers, who are constantly ready to steal personal data and money via technological tools. 

Fraud, unfortunately, is now the order of the day, and phones make things much easier for those who try to carry out such frauds. Phone spoofing falls right into this domain, so it’s crucial to clearly understand not only what it means, but above all how to protect yourself from such schemes and how to avoid running into them.

The meaning of telephone spoofing: what it is and types

Literally, the meaning of spoofing is connected to that of deception, cheating. With this type of attack, attackers impersonate another entity by falsifying data in order to gain an illegitimate advantage. This manipulation is based on the ability to deceive systems and users who are led (wrongly) to believe that they are communicating with a trusted source.

It is a technique that is widely used in more general phishing attacks, the ultimate goal of which is to obtain personal information, such as passwords, credit card numbers or financial details. 

To really understand the meaning of spoofing, however, a distinction must be made between the different types of attacks possible. In some cases, victims may receive classic messages on their phones in which the identity of the sender is concealed in order to appear legitimate (SMS spoofing). However, there is not only message spoofing, but also voice spoofing. Malicious attackers can in fact also change phone numbers when making calls to users.

Changing the sender’s numbers and name, by the way, is not such a difficult practice. There are even providers who offer this type of service because, basically, it is not considered illegal. It is only so when it is used to defraud users. Take for instance all those companies that need to send large-scale service messages to their customers and need to hide the sender’s number. In this case, the practice appears perfectly legitimate, whereas the meaning of spoofing changes, taking on a negative connotation when the process is generated to carry out malicious actions and scams. 

Then there is also e-mail spoofing, which, as the name suggests, takes place by sending e-mails. Also not to be forgotten is IP spoofing, with which fraudsters conceal the identity of a server by making the IP address of a host seemingly legitimate, or even DNS server spoofing, in which the compromise of the DNS (Domain Name Service) server results in a redirection to a malicious site. ARP spoofing must also necessarily be taken into account in order to protect oneself: in this case, forged ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) messages are sent by fraudsters.

Regardless of the type of approach adopted, all the various forms of spoofing share a fundamental element: they use trust as leverage to obtain or alter sensitive data, commit financial fraud, circumvent network access control mechanisms, and spread malicious software through malicious links and attachments.

How to protect yourself?

Identifying spoofing attacks has become increasingly difficult today and this is because, as already mentioned, falsifying the identity of senders is anything but difficult. This means that everyone should adopt sound and careful security practices. 

First of all, you should only visit official and notoriously secure sites (with HTTPS protocol). Then you should think carefully about every communication you receive (on any kind of channel), even when the sender seems absolutely trustworthy. 

You should then avoid entering your personal data too confidently and lightly without first having investigated the sender who is requesting that action, and you should obviously carefully analyse all links and attachments contained in received communications. A simple click on them, in fact, could have important repercussions for you. 

The use of strong and robust passwords is also highly recommended. You should avoid using common names that can be linked to you, or easily identifiable dates of birth, and construct highly customised keys that are difficult to find.

Keeping your attention high, therefore, is crucial, but it is not the only thing you can do to protect yourself against spoofing. You could, for instance, decide to use a VPN to make fraud attempts more difficult (hackers would find it difficult to decipher the data of users who have encrypted their traffic). Or you could evaluate services such as blocking cookies, offered for instance by NordVPN’s Threat Protection. You could also use classic antivirus software, which is able to identify attack attempts, and firewalls that can detect addresses outside the local network. 

As already stated at the beginning of this article, knowing the meaning of spoofing is more important than ever, as is keeping alert to the countless fraud attempts to which we are unfortunately now exposed. 

Young Platform takes strong security measures to ensure its reliability and does not ask its users for access credentials and other security codes.

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Discover 5 basic finance concepts to better manage your savings 

When you hear the word ‘finance’, does your brain immediately reply ‘I’ll never understand it’? As a matter of fact, it is one of the most intimidating topics for people, perhaps because it is rich in concepts or because it is associated with large amounts of money and risks, or even because it is considered an elitist world for a few experts. Finance is nothing more than the management of funds and it also has an impact on your daily life, so to manage your money with awareness, it is important to know the basics. Here are 5 basic finance concepts you need to know. 

1. Time value of money

The first of these basic finance concepts is that a sum of money is worth more in the present than in the future. In other words, the value of money decreases over time due to inflation, which reduces purchasing power.  

This means that if you keep €1,000 for five years ‘idle’ under your mattress, its value will drop dramatically over time. And at the same time you will lose the possible gains that your 1,000€ would have yielded once invested. 

The concept of time value of money in fact shows that if money gradually loses value, the only way to make it grow is by investing and that waiting to do so means missing an opportunity.  

This principle is to be taken into account before embarking on any financial strategy. Pension fund managers, for example, consider the time value of money to ensure adequate funds for their clients at retirement.

The time value of money can be calculated using a formula that takes several variables into account: the present value of an amount of money, the time interval, interest and inflation rates.

Compared to fiat currency, there are assets that are less subject to the time value of money principle. These include safe haven assets such as gold and commodities because their scarcity increases their value over time, and for some this category also includes Bitcoin (read the research). 

2. Diversification

To explain the second of the basic concepts of finance, that of diversification, the image of the basket is often used: the rule is ‘never put all your eggs in one basket, if it falls they will all break’. The idea is not to buy a single asset with your savings to avoid losing everything if something goes wrong. Diversification serves to minimise risk and consists of spreading one’s investments across several assets. 

Diversification is also used by crypto users to create a balanced cryptocurrency wallet.

3. Risk/reward

Another of the basic concepts of finance is that of the ‘risk/return’ ratio. This relationship is directly proportional, i.e. the higher the risk, the higher the return and vice versa. In the world of finance, you often hear that ‘There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch’; this expression was popularised by the economist Milton Friedman among others. One cannot have lunch without paying, i.e. in order to have high profits, one must be willing to take risks.  

4. Interests 

Interest is a fundamental component of finance and represents the cost of borrowed money or the gain from a deposit. In a loan, interest represents the amount of money the lender charges the borrower for lending him/her the money. They are usually expressed as a percentage and are paid together with the repayment of the principal (i.e. the amount of money lent) at set intervals, e.g. monthly or annually.

In an investment, on the other hand, interest is the profit earned over a period of time. For example, if you deposit money in a bank account that offers an interest rate of 2% per annum, you will earn 2% on the money deposited each year.

When considering whether to take out a mortgage, looking at the interest rates is crucial. These can be influenced by the monetary policies of the European Central Bank, which decides on interest rates, which then fall on the commercial banks. 

5. Put your money at work 

Of all the basic concepts of finance, this refers to the idea of embarking on a strategy in order to grow one’s savings and thus achieve a return. 

In this way, the money ‘works’ for you, producing results. Obviously every investment has its risk component, the idea behind ‘putting your money at work’ is to try to get a higher return than you could get by simply keeping your money in a bank account or under your mattress.

In summary, ‘put your money at work’ is an invitation to consider investing as a way to grow your money and achieve your long-term financial goals. 

These were the 5 basic finance concepts worth knowing. Not as incomprehensible as you thought, right?

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Comparing the best investment strategies: should we wait for the right moment to invest or buy regularly?

The first thing to consider when choosing your investment strategies is time: is there a right time to invest? If you too have thought at least once about making your savings pay off, without knowing when to start, there is good news: you can start now and get results even without being a financial guru and spending all day interpreting numbers and charts. 

According to research by Charles Schwab, a multinational financial services company, waiting for the right time to enter a market is very expensive. In other words, buying an asset by trying to calculate ideal market conditions is less convenient than relying on a recurring purchase. 

Is market timing the best investment strategy?

The purpose of Charles Schwab’s 2021 analysis, which we will present in this article, is to understand whether market timing works. That is, to seek an answer to the question: is there a right time to invest? The term ‘market timing’ refers to the attempt to find the best time to buy or sell an asset. You can consider market timing as one of the investment strategies adopted by investors who try to anticipate market movements and, for example, sell before a fall and buy before a rise. For the company’s analysts, market timing does not help to make one’s savings pay off. Let’s see how they came to this conclusion. 

The 5 investors’ thought experiment 

Charles Schwab scholars conducted a thought experiment on five different investment strategies. Each investor was given a $2,000 budget per year to invest in the S&P 500, the most important US stock index, for twenty years, from 2000 to 2020. 

1. Peter Perfect

Peter is the perfect market timer, that friend who is always successful at what he does. By skill or luck, he has managed to place his annual $2,000 by always finding the right time to invest. For example, in 2001 he waited until 21 September, the lowest closing level of that year for the S&P 500.

1. Ashley Action

Her investment strategy is simple and consistent: each year she invested $2,000 in the market on the first day of the year. 

1. Matthew Monthly 

Matthew divided his budget into 12 equal shares that he invested at the beginning of each month, with a strategy called dollar cost averaging that can be implemented with recurring and automatic purchases.

1. Rosie Rotten

The fourth investor had poor timing and a lot of bad luck: she placed $2,000 each year at peak market times. For example, Rosie invested her first $2,000 on 30 January 2001, the highest closing level of that year for the S&P 500.

1. Larry Linger

He, waiting for the right time, never invested in stocks but kept his budget in cash or Treasury bonds. 

At the end of twenty years of investment, the profits are as ranked below: 

1. Peter Perfect: $151,391
2. Ashley Action: $135,471
3. Matthew Monthly: $134,856
4. Rosie Rotten: $121,171
5. Larry Linger: $44,438

So what was the best investment strategy?

The best results of course are Peter’s who waited and planned his annual investments perfectly. But the most surprising and least expected results of the study concern Matthew and Ashley, the latter coming in with only $15,920 less than the first ranked and Matthew with only $16,535 less. Matthew’s recurring purchase approach performed well. The difference in profits is relatively small, considering that he simply invested regularly without calculating timing or market forecasts.

Another obvious consequence of the research is that even bad timing still wins out over inertia. Although Rosie lost $14,300 compared to Ashley (who did not try to predict the market), Rosie still made almost three times what she would have made if she had not invested at all.

To sum up, the experiment shows that it’s worthwhile to invest now, and not to wait for supposed better times. And that putting one’s savings in motion even in a difficult market moment is still better than not investing at all. 

Charles Schwab examined 76 other 20-year periods and almost always found similar results in the ranking of investors for their returns. Even in periods with unexpected rankings, those who invested early never came last. 

What all this means for you

If you have a budget to invest in some market and do not know the best time to do so, starting now and on a regular basis could be the winning choice. 

The benefits of market timing do not stand out; this investment strategy only pays off for those with the skills or luck to anticipate trends. Regularity is less risky and more efficient. 

The winning choice of recurring purchase 

If you do not have the possibility or do not feel like spending your entire annual budget at once, consider recurring purchases. This way you can place smaller amounts more frequently. Recurring purchase has the advantage of: 

1. Preventing laziness: this research shows that the ‘I’ll do it later’ or ‘maybe it’s better to wait’ approach does not work at all; 
2. Minimise the stress of those who seek the perfect moments at all costs and the regrets of large investments that have failed; 
3. Untie your profits from the timing of the market and its volatility. 

The best investment strategies? There is no such thing! The research concludes that, given the difficulty of predicting the market, the most realistic strategy for most investors is to set up recurring purchases. 

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