E-Mail Security: Protect Yourself From Hackers

Email is an essential form of communication; however, with it comes a number of concerns you need to be aware of and it doesn’t matter if your emails are for personal or business use. Hackers are out there looking for any way to steal your information, including credit card numbers, addresses, social security numbers and more. To help you minimize your chances of becoming a victim and getting hacked here are some useful tips for prevention:

1) Don’t ever open links from someone you don’t know or trust. Links can be used to bring you to unsafe websites that can either give your computer a virus, or gather your personal information also known as phishing.

2) Even though most email services come with spam filters, do not trust them 100%. Sometimes spam messages slip through the cracks, so double check the sender’s address of any email that you may not be certain of before opening.

3) Make sure you have an anti-virus software installed to your computer, just incase you open a message with a virus in it. Here is a list of the top ten recommended anti-virus softwares.

4) Turn off the preview pane of your email service. If your email software automatically displays the message in a preview pane, you cannot avoid viewing the spam, which may lead to more spam messages.

5) Turn off the images in your emails. Images in can be tracked, and lead to more spam in the future.

6) If you do receive a scam, report it to your email service immediately. This will prevent it from happening again in the future, and hopefully get those who sent the message caught.

7) Never leave your email open and unattended. Always make sure to sign out of your account when you are done checking your email.

8) Change your password for your email at least every 90 days, especially if you’re using your email account on several different computers.

Now that you know how to be keep your personal information and computer safe, you might want to get back to those pressing emails!

Find out more about cyber crimes and liabilities here – Cyber Liability Section.