{"id":28916,"date":"2022-07-22T12:49:34","date_gmt":"2022-07-22T12:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/easydmarc.com\/blog\/?p=28916"},"modified":"2023-07-11T12:48:46","modified_gmt":"2023-07-11T12:48:46","slug":"what-are-email-injection-attacks-and-how-to-prevent-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/easydmarc.com\/blog\/what-are-email-injection-attacks-and-how-to-prevent-them\/","title":{"rendered":"What Are Email Injection Attacks and How to Prevent Them?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Email injection attacks<\/b> let hackers access the internals of a system to practice malicious activities. This tactic can be used to tarnish your brand\u2019s image by sending bulk spam or phishing emails anonymously<\/a> from your mail server.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hackers often use <\/span>email header injections<\/b> to infect computers and servers with different types of <\/span>malware<\/span><\/a>. While these attacks aren\u2019t directly dangerous to you as a website owner, they can ruin your business reputation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus business owners must educate their employees about <\/span>what email <\/b>injection attacks<\/b> are<\/b>, their working procedures, and ways to prevent them. Continue reading to know all this and more.<\/span><\/p>\n

What are Email Injection Attacks?<\/b><\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s answer the basic question: <\/span>What are email injection attacks<\/b>? Well, <\/span>email injections<\/b> are similar to <\/span>SQL injection attacks<\/span><\/a>\u2014they both exploit one common security vulnerability: Unvalidated user input fields.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Most websites have contact forms with input fields for users to sign up to newsletters, etc. This input data often includes email headers utilized to send emails to the intended recipient. The headers are interpreted by the website server\u2019s email library and turned into SMTP commands which the SMTP server then processes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, there\u2019s often no mechanism in place to validate and verify these headers, so hackers exploit this security vulnerability. By entering or altering email headers, cyberattackers can execute SMTP commands that allow them to send bulk spam messages or malware-infected phishing emails to unsuspecting victims.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The worst part? These emails still originate from the website\u2019s mail server, so they look 100% legitimate coming from a genuine website domain.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

PHP applications are more prone to such attacks; hence hackers see them as hidden treasures. <\/span>PHP email injection<\/b> attacks are popular as cybersecurity experts fail to trace any signs of such an attack.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although<\/span> email injections <\/b>aren\u2019t directly harmful to website owners, they can cost more than you think. Contact forms with vulnerabilities are used for spamming, <\/span>phishing<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>injecting spyware<\/span><\/a>, etc.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

How Does an Email Header Injection Work?<\/b><\/h2>\n

To understand <\/span>injection flaws or email injection <\/b>vulnerabilities, you must know the difference between the envelope and the body of an email. The envelope forms part of the SMTP protocol as the underlying part of the message with the following commands:<\/span><\/p>\n