Mailbox – Keeping Your Email Mailbox Safe

The computer has made vast contributions to our lives allowing us to become far more organized and productive than at any other time in history. Thanks to the email mailbox we can now stay in touch with people not only all around the country but all over the world. Instead of waiting days or weeks for a letter to make its way to us we can have a reply in seconds to an email we have sent out. However this instant connectivity does not come without a price and unless you take the steps necessary to protect your email you could end up with some very serious problems.

Spam, spam, spam

One of the biggest problems that most people have to deal with is the amount of spam or unsolicited email that ends up in their mailbox. Spam is the electronic version of the bulk mail you used to get so much of in your postal mailbox. Since the advent of the Internet and email, there have been thousands of companies springing up that do nothing but send out thousands of bulk emails a day in the hopes of getting someone to buy what they have to sell.

With this in mind you may be wondering how spam finds its way into your email box, if you do anything at all online such as belong to a group of forums, leave your email on someone's personal or business site you can be targeted for spam. Companies use a piece of software called a spambot that continuously combs the Internet looking for emails to add to their mailing list, if you have left your email at any of these sites it will pick it up and place you on their mailing list.

Gone Phishing

Of all the different types of email scams that have been used, phishing is one of the latest to permeate your mailbox. A phishing email is designed to look like it comes from a reputable company such as PayPal or Chase Bank. The person creating the email will copy the format, logos and even use a legitimate looking return address to fool you. The email will ask you for your private information such as account numbers, passwords etc. and these fake emails are generally very hard to spot and are the worst kind of scam.

Once you have sent the "bank" the information they have requested the phisher can steal your identity very easily and leave you in a terrible financial mess. Recent surveys show that an average of 5% of those receiving phishing emails actually responds to them and end up losing everything including their credit rating. To protect yourself you should never open an email that comes from an address you do not recognize, if you continue to get spam emails from the same place you can report them to the Anti-Spam League. If you want to be extra safe, companies like LifeLock offer great identity protection from spammers, as well as spyware and malware.

If you get any kind of email in your mailbox that asks you to divulge personal information or your passwords you should contact the company you normally deal with immediately. These companies will never send you an email asking for this type of information. Never put your personal information in an email and send it to a "company" that has requested it. Make sure you keep your anti-virus software up to date and be very careful about which attachments you open, if you are not sure do not open it just put the whole email in the trash and move on. You are the best protection you have for your email mailbox as long as you take the proper precautions.