How to Secure Your E-Mail from Hackers

Everyone uses e-mail. It is the second most used application on the internet next to your web browser. But what you might not realize is that a significant portion of network attacks and compromises originate through e-mail. And with respect to your privacy, misuse of e-mail has the potential to disclose either the contents of your message, or give a spammer information about you. The purpose of this module is to give you information on how e-mail works, safe e- mail usage, e-mail based attacks, and security strategies for e-mail.

How Email Works?

It's a great knowledge that you should know, How your Email works? Just like airmail is sent through the air, 'e'-mail is sent through the 'e' – the 'e' in this case being the web of electronic connections within and between the networks that make up the Internet. When you send an e-mail from your computer, the data is sent from your computer to an SMTP server. The SMTP server then searches for the correct POP3 server and sends your e-mail to that server, where it waits until your intended recipient retrieves it.This was the short process of E-Mail delivery.

Safe your E-mail Receiving

Everyone uses e-mail, and to the surprise of many people, your e-mail can be used against you. E-mail should be treated as a post card, in that anyone who looks can read the contents. You should never put anything in an ordinary e-mail that you don’t want to be read. That being said there are strategies for securing your e-mail. In this section we will cover safe and sane e-mail usage and how to protect your privacy online.

Safe From Spam and Phishing

Everybody likes to get e-mail.  A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away it used to be you only got mail from people you knew, and it was about things you cared about. Now you get e-mail from people you never heard of asking you to buy software, drugs, and real estate, not to mention help them get 24 million dollars out of Nigeria.  This type of unsolicited advertising is called spam.  It comes as a surprise to many people that e-mail they receive can provide a lot of information to a sender, such as when the mail was opened and how many times it was read, if it was forwarded, etc. This type of technology called web bugs is used by both spammers and legitimate senders.  Also, replying to an e-mail or clicking on the unsubscribe link may tell the sender that they have reached a live address.  Another invasion of privacy concern is the increasingly common “phishing” attack. Have you ever gotten an e-mail asking you to login and verify your bank or E-bay account information?  Beware, because it is a trick to steal your account information.   To secure yourself against these types of attacks, there are some simple strategies to protect yourself outlined below.

HTML E-Mail (Hyper text Markup Language Emails)

One of the security concerns with HTML based e-mail is the use of web bugs . Web bugs are hidden images in your e-mail that link to the senders’ web server, and can provide them with notification that you have received or opened the mail. Another flaw with HTML e-mail is that the sender can embed links in the e-mail that identify the person who clicks on them. This can give the sender information about the status of the message. As a rule, you should use a mail client that allows you to disable the automatic downloading of attached or embedded images. Another problem is related to scripts in the e-mail that may launch an application ,if your browser has not been patched for security flaws.

For web based e-mail clients, you may have the option of disabling the automatic download of images, or viewing the message as text. Either is a good security practice. The best way to protect yourself against HTML e-mail based security and privacy attacks is to use text based e- mail. If you must use HTML e-mail, beware!

E-Mail Attachments Security

Another real concern related to received e-mail security is attachments. Attackers can send you malware, viruses, Trojan horses and all sorts of nasty programs. The best defense against e-mail borne malware is to not open anything from anyone you don’t know. Never open a file with the extension .exe or .scr, as these are extensions that will launch an executable file that may infect your comp uter with a virus. For good measure, any files you receive should be saved to your hard drive and scanned with an antivirus program. Beware of files that look like a well known file type, such as a zip file. Sometimes attackers can disguise a file by changing the icon or hiding the file extension so you don’t know it is an executable.

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