Avoiding Email Spam

A brief definition of “email spam” is an unsolicited message, usually (but not always) of a commercial nature, sent to you and a large number of other recipients by an unknown sender. The use of email spam is popular amongst cyber criminals who want to try and gain your private information online.

Email spam often takes advantage of sophisticated, automated technology to maximise the amount of emails that can be sent and to help make sure they get through to inboxes. It can take a number of forms, often using quite simple text emails.

There are some common characteristics of spam to look out for. Because spam filters can be taught to block messages containing specific words most likely to appear in the subject line or body, one of the techniques that spammers employ to get their emails through is to alter, misspell, replace or add word characters. The message body varies from a few words to several phrases or paragraphs and often includes a link directing to the Web site selling the products or hosting the announced services.

So, what can be done to help protect against the effects of email spam you receive? The following common sense recommendations should help you out:

• Do not open or copy files onto your computer, even if it comes from a trusted source, before running a complete antivirus scan.
• Do not open emails and email attachments from senders you do not know, or those with subject lines that you find odd. Always delete spam emails.
• Be very careful of email requests from financial or commercial institutions requiring you to enter personal information. Most of these organisations usually send customised printed notification forms through the post. If you have any doubt about an email you received from such an organisation then contact them immediately.
• Do not click any links indicated in a suspected spam e-mail. This includes the “unsubscribe” ones; you might trigger other malware and compromise your system security.
• Install and activate a reliable antivirus, firewall solution and spam filter, keep it fully updated and run frequent system scans.
• Check on a regular basis with your operating system provider – download and install the latest securities updates and malware removal tools, as well as other patches or fixes.

Of course, it also helps to minimise the places where you use your email address online, which in turn keeps down the chance of spammers knowing it. Here are some further tips:

• When browsing the Internet, do not submit your email address and personal information when requested by suspicious web pages.
• When purchasing goods and services online, refrain from signing up for any additional service, promotion or other subscription unless you really need them.
• Avoid placing your email address on websites, guest books, newsgroups, contact lists, shopping or gift lists.
• When publishing your email address, use a deliberately altered version, such as myaddress[at]domainname[dot]com, instead of using the “@” and “.” signs.
• Use at least two email addresses – one for personal correspondence, the other for accessing online content and suchlike.