4 Email security threats that you must know about

Emails are one of the formal communication methods that every one of us uses today to communicate with others. Some emails are informative, some are for approvals, while some other are just for keeping your personal as well as PC security at stake. Nowadays, email is widely trusted for enabling fast and cost-effective communication, but this boon has got a few loopholes too. Malware suspiciously enters into your machines, while you access infected mails, and may corrupt some critical documents as well as applications, resulting in partial or complete data loss.

Below is the summary of some of the most common email security threats:

1. Viruses

Viruses are one of the most common email security threats to which most of the corporations, organizations and individual users are fighting at present. Viruses are specially designed in a way to attract Internet users and are generally found in the form of personal notes, jokes, or online marketing and promotional documents, files and attachments.

Most often viruses require an initiation from the recipient’s side to disseminate infection and spread itself in the system but some others may get launched automatically, where no user action is required. A virus has the capability of spreading itself globally within a few hours and may bring down the entire communication system, disturb the performance of global networks and decay important documents, when once activated.

2. Spam

Also known as junk email or unsolicited bulk email, spam not only occupies useful space in your mailbox but also acts as a carrier of viruses, spyware, and malware in an innocent and eye-pleasing appearance. According to various corporate communication studies, around 15 to 20 percent of all corporate email does not carry valuable information and can be considered spam. While keeping this estimate in mind, a company gets around 2.1 billion spam email messages each year if it has 1000 employees.

Spam mails not only hampers productivity but also results in system slowdowns and hanging issues due to mails carrying heavy data. Additionally, these mails turn to be extremely dangerous if you Click or Download the file attached with them. Opening malicious emails can facilitate the process of malware spreading and damaging your data, software or hardware to an irreparable extent.

3. Phishing Scams

Phishing schemes or scams are aimed at obtaining personal as well as sensitive data from innocent users and then using the same for personal benefits by hackers or identity thieves. The main motive of these scams is to commit identity theft or financial fraud by making an attempt to invite recipients for surrendering their personal information.

Details such as address, social security number (SSN), email passwords, location, phone numbers, bank account numbers or even IPIN are successfully gathered by identity thieves by promising a grand lottery prize, which is actually nothing but a trap. Phishing schemes are not limited to individuals but also target smaller business groups to obtain their corporate credit card numbers, log in IDs and passwords. By gathering all such information, hackers get easy access to CRM and financial systems of the company and may pilfer money from their accounts as well.

4. Spyware

Have you ever thought what will you do if an outsider is keeping a constant check on your machine starting from a mouse Click to an Enter? If no, then think twice. Spyware, as the name suggests, is a spying malware that captures all the activities of your PC, collects them and send them out to another person.

An efficient spyware program is designed in a way that it can record every single keystroke and every action that takes place on your PC. Hence, the chances remain very high that the program can give confidential details, various strategies, bank account details as well as personal information to the hackers to keep PC as well as identity security at stake.

Always pay extra attention towards judging an email smartly as it can safeguard you from various system as well as personal security risks. Above mentioned are some the common categories of email threats used by hackers to trace down your personal as well as crucial information. Additionally, you are recommended to adopt following habits to avoid such risks:

• Never open a hyperlink in a suspected email
• Contact the mentioned organization in suspected email via telephone or paper mail
• Never reply suspicious emails with your personal information such as date of birth, location, bank account numbers and specially passwords
• Keep track of small charges in your financial statements
• Change your passwords often and log out of public computers immediately after use
• Keep your passwords strong and secret

About the Author: Hi! I am Brook M. Perry, a prolific blog writer and keen author of articles related to internet security and solution for issues related to computers and mobile devices. Being associated with the reputed best pc tuneup service provider Qresolve, I have resolved thousands of tech issues for our customers from worldwide. Computer online technical support My areas of interest are PC security, endpoint security system, router support etc.

Brooke M. Perry is an ardent technician associated with Qresolve computer security, with wide experience of fixing issues with PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones.