Computers and the internet make billions of lives easier everyday through better networking, rapid connectivity and ease of work. E-mail (electronic mail) is an extremely important branch of today’s online system where you can easily interact with another individual in any part of the world with a single mouse click. Doesn’t it seem too good to be true? In fact the technology is quite appreciable and connectivity is extremely fast, but this has some major drawbacks that some of you might even not be aware of. A single click hooks you up with anyone in the globe; but if that click is made on the wrong place, you could be possibly giving out an open invitation to viruses and scam mails to contaminate your message box.
It is important to first go through the types of items that try to break through email security and make you vulnerable; either directly or through something wrong done by the user. Spam is an extremely common word nowadays but many people only know about it through the “Spam/Junk Folder” category in their mailboxes and they don’t know what spam actually is. Spam email is actually unwanted mail that is sent around by unknown people in bulk to more than 200 receivers at one time. You may have witnessed several unwelcome emails such as advertisements where you haven’t even registered or subscribed to them. Surprised how they reached your mailbox? Basically, these are sent by spambots controlled by unknown people roaming all around the internet collecting emails from wherever they find to generate bulk mailing lists. You may become a target if you have filled in forum registrations or newsgroup forms with your email without looking at their authenticity. Email security nowadays has been strengthened by various free and paid email service providers such as Gmail, Yahoo!, Live (previously Hotmail), AIM etc and thus they have set parameters and filters in their databases; any mail that meets up their constraints is marked as junk and sent automatically to the spam folder.
Phishing is a comparatively new type of scam by email and most individuals have no information about them, which is why they easily catch their bait. These are different from spam mails which often include “Click Here!” advertisements or attractive pictures/offers/attachments which leave your computer infected with viruses and mail worms if your computer is not protected with an antivirus or a firewall; hackers then gain control of your system and steal private data from your hard drive. Phishing, on the other hand, lures email users into a similar-looking script and they claim to be a legitimate company (eBay, PayPal, Amazon etc.) telling users to re-enter confidential information and then misuse it. It is difficult for many users to differentiate if it is illicit or not and email security now makes the comparison easier by spotting sites and scripts which don’t redirect to a secure server and thus automatically transferring these messages in the junk folder. This indicates what a Godsend email security is for those involved in online trade by protecting their private information.
However strong email security is, it is also your responsibility to train yourself and be careful in instances where this security lacks. Examples include not entering your credit card information on insecure websites, opening attachments after special care, installing good antivirus software on your computer (although email suppliers now have an integrated antivirus) etc.
