E-Mail Security - Getting the Basics Right

Most of us consider email an essential part of life these days. Unfortunately this popularity has led to an increase in viruses and fraud and it's important that you learn to protect yourself from these kinds of threats before it's too late.

Viruses

You should always be careful when opening an attachment from anyone, even someone you know well. Email viruses often arrive as part of an email attachment; they infiltrate address books and send infected e-mail to everyone in your address book so it's possible for you to receive a virus from a colleague or friend and it's possible for them to receive a virus from you.

Ideally, if you know you'll be sending attachments you should let the person know that you're sending an attachment so they know that it is safe to open as well. It's ideal if your contacts can return this favor too so everyone knows what's going on.

If you're concerned about email viruses the best thing you can do is to add anti-virus software to your computer (you should have this already in reality). The software scans every e-mail that you receive. This is especially relevant if you work in an environment where the computers are networked because of the viruses downloaded onto one computer it can infect the entire network and cause a massive amount of damage.

Phishing

Another popular security risk also arrives via email. This one is called 'phishing' and tricks the recipient into disclosing personal information and passwords. These e-mails often use the logos of a financial institution, online retailers and others to trick you into believing that the e-mail is real.

When you receive one of these phishing e-mails you will usually be told that the financial institution or other company needs a password or financial information from you. You'll be asked to click on a link in the e-mail which will send you to a third-party site and you will be asked to input your credit card information, PIN or your password information.

To determine if an e-mail is a phishing e-mail you can look at the text that comes along with the e-mail you receive. You will not be addressed by name but rather as a 'valued customer' or 'friend' - this should set off alarms straight away.

Another tipoff is you'll find a link that doesn't correspond to the text describing it. For example, if you check the status bar when you highlight the link the text might say something like Microsoft but the URL will be something completely different such as .don't go here.com.

There are specialized software programs that can detect phishing but they're not always as accurate as you would like them to be. The best solution for this is to simply be on your guard, not click on any links that look suspicious and certainly not give any personal information such as passwords or credit card information. If you really believe that the e-mail is on the up and up you can call the company and provide information that way.

Back up your email

Just like any other data, email should be backed up, on a regular basis. It can be easily done by exporting messages to a folder and backing up the folder with a backup program. The data will be backed up onto a removable disk, a writable DVD or CD or other kind of backup media.

If you want more assurance, you can purchase a backup e-mail program that will eliminate you having to do all the backing up yourself.

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Remote Email Access

The advancement of wireless technology has brought the world together, with easy and convenient access to information, whenever we need and wherever we are. Remote Email Access is one example of the flexibility provided by the remote access technology. Remote Email Access gives the user the ability to access, receive and send emails wherever he or she is located.

There are two approaches to Remote Email Access, depending on how conveniently and frequently you can access the computer. In case you have a computer at your disposal than the POP approach best works, but if you are dependent on a cyber caf�, than you may prefer web access instead.

POP stands for post office protocol and is the way real email systems work. To access your mail using POP, you need to access a POP server that verifies your username and password before granting you access to your emails. Once the mail is downloaded on your system, it is deleted from the POP server. You can access these mails even when you are offline. To access your mails through POP, you would use email client software such as Eudora, Pegasus or Outlook, or the email component of a web browser suite such as Outlook Express or Netscape Messenger.

An alternative way to access mails is to use a web browser such as MS Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator or Opera to visit a web site, than you need to sign in with a user id and password, and then read your mail online. The biggest advantage of web access is that you can check your mails through any computer that has a web browser installed. The only disadvantage is that you have to be online all the time while checking, receiving or sending mails.

Thus, you can use either of the two options according to your convenience and access and exchange your mails with your boss, friends or relatives, wherever you are.

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How Does Email Security Work?

Every time you connect to the email, you're taking a risk. Viruses, trojans, malware, spyware, worms, spam they're all nasty stuff designed specifically to pillage personal information or cause general mayhem on your computer as it innocently communicates with others.

The internet is insecure

As the internet is very insecure by nature -ie anyone can load anything on it - you need to take cautionary steps to protect yourself. Even harmlessly browsing through sites may get your computer affected with a virus or spyware without you even knowing it. Internet security is your protection against such intrusions and works by limiting your computer's exposure to online threats.

Measures to take

Basic measures involve protection by carefully selected passwords, file permissions and data backups. Unfortunately it doesn't end there. In the age of enterprising cyber criminals, installing anti-virus software, a personal firewall, anti-adware and anti-spyware as well as browsing software is essential. Such software can be bundled into a suite for you to buy to take the stress out of finding them separately. Some security tasks are automatically performed by your operating system; others must be managed and monitored by the user to be effective.

The first line of defense is a firewall. It works by allowing your computer to only connect to trusted sources - kind of like a hardware or software device that acts like a fence around your computer. Both hardware and software firewalls use a number of different techniques to keep your PC and network safe with all data (incoming and outgoing) inspected to see if it is coming from and going to trusted ports and possibly even trusted IP addresses. You can usually tailor your firewall to suit your needs by allowing exceptions and adding programs and websites.

Virus and spyware protection software, meanwhile, help you keep your files safe. Hackers insert viruses and spyware in website HTML, text files and software programs. Once downloaded and activated, these programs can destroy files, copy passwords and banking details and damage software programs. A general anti-virus program scans for such viruses and spyware either deletes or quarantines them for you.

What is your responsibility?

Users must also pay particular attention to common email security threats. Do not open email file attachments from unknown sources because this tends to be a major source of viruses. Clicking on active links in emails can redirect your browser to sites full of spyware, adware or worse. Phishing - or fake emails from trusted sources that ask for personal and financial information - can lead to identity theft. In general, your bank or credit card will never email a request for you to update your details. Common sense prevails here.

Warning

Also be warned that new internet threats appear daily. Keeping your security software updated is essential to your security plan. Review the default internet security settings and update settings for your operating system, browser, email program and all installed security software often. Schedule a daily or weekly time for your virus and spyware software to run and report your security status. If you are frequently finding that your computer has been invaded by spyware or viruses, upgrade your software or select stronger protection options.

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E-Mail Phishing - What It Is And How To Avoid Becoming A Victim

It's official now that E-mail has become the quickest, most reliable and convenient way of sending messages today. Because of this fact, it has also become the most targeted venue of frauds, scams, spam and other dangers. The majority of online users are oblivious to these dangers, you don't have to be. One of the most dangerous e-mail scams are Phishing sites.

What is a Phishing Site - Phishing sites are sites that are disguised as trust-worthy site, such as PayPal or A credit card processing company like Visa or A bank. The purpose of these sites is to trick you into giving up your private information, Such as your password, account name, bank number and credit card number. The criminals that are behind this are called "phishers". The phishers then can use your private information to steal all your money or commit cyber crimes.

Solutions To Phishing Sites - The phishing site emails are often disguised as a warning email telling you that someone has accessed your account or such; it will demand your immediate action. Don't be fooled by them!

Phishing sites are easy to tell once you know where to look. If the email provides you a link to click on, simply hover your mouse pointer over the link and look at your status bar. The status bar is often located to the bottom left corner of your browser. If the link contains a long string of html that contains a strange string of text with no associations with the companies' name on it, it is most likely a phishing site.

Why are they targeting you - You have become a target because you probably haven't been very careful with your email address. Phishers uses programs called "Email Leechers" to extract your email address. These programs will access a website and then scans it for any line of text that contains the "@" sign. It will collect all these names and create a massive list of email addresses that the phishers then can later use to commit cyber crimes.

There is no real solution to preventing your email address from falling to the wrong hands because if the phishers are persistent they can get your email address no matter what, but there are easy steps you can take to dithers their efforts and reduce the risks considerably.

1) Give a phony or throw away Email address - This is a no-brainer, create throw away email addresses, and keep your important email address for important matters. You can get all the free email addresses you want from Hotmail, Yahoo Mail or Mail.com.

2) Disguise your email address - On forums, use (a) or (at) or clever imitations of these if you are communicating with someone and needed them to send you an email. Let them now that they should replay the (at) with "@".

Example: "YourName123 (at) Mail.com"

3) Don't Give out your Email Address - This is simple never ever give out your email address unless you know exactly who you are giving it to.

4) Download Anti-Spam Programs - Anti-spam programs can automatically identify and filter good sites from bad sites from your Email inbox. You can also manually add your own list of trusted sites to customize who you want to receive messages from and you don't.

Phishing is a crime and you don't need to be a victim, Takes these steps and precautions and you will have a very safe time online. Here's to you and a safer internet experience.

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