If you are constantly receiving spam, getting unknown mails and encountering problems in logging in, you better watch out. You probably aren’t aware that your email account has been hacked by someone and that the person has been using the same from unknown time. Can you imagine the loss or the possible consequences? Email is one of the quickest way to send and receive messages and in today’s scenario, it is being used immensely. But there are various security threats that can harm your email security. These threats can be caused due to weak security settings, phishing, hacking and spyware attacks.

Email vulnerabilities can lead to loss of important personal and financial information. Sometimes, you receive too much spam mails due to weaker security settings. These spam mails waste lot of your useful time and computer resources. The other very common threat is your computer getting inflicted with a virus. Virus not only affects your email, it corrupts the useful data, and infects the hard disk and messaging network also. Your weak internet securities not only harm you, but to those whom you send emails to. No internet system can be 100% safe, but still you should be aware of protecting your internet settings to a considerable level. Here are listed some useful tips that will help you in boosting your email security.

Basic Email Security Tips

• Always use encryption in authentication process. Encrypt your mails if possible. Check with your ISP’s policies to determine whether authentication is encrypted or not.
• You can use email monitoring program. It acts as a spam filter. It would check the headers, attachments, source IP address and other necessary information before the mail comes to you. The program helps save your system from getting unsolicited mass spam.
• Don’t forget to use email security software. It will prevent information leaks and internal email policies. The software would also protect the system from outbound messages and unknown threats.
• Don’t open attachments until you are not sure of the sender. Don’t trust any unknown. Opening files from unknown source make the computer most vulnerable to viruses.
• Sign your emails digitally. You can use some encryption tool like PGP to digitally sign your emails. No body can then access to your email until he/she has the private key.
• Don’t open phishing mails; they generally ‘appear’ to come from big companies like American online or eBay and mostly try to offer lotteries and prizes of huge amount. Such senders usually ask for your account number and other important information. Beware of them!
• Use an updated antivirus and spyware program. It will protect your computer from virus threats. It must be able to block the infected documents or clean them before the email reaches the addressee.
• Avoid sending your important financial information like bank account details, credit card number or other security number and passwords in emails.
• Don’t access your email from an insecure network or potentially compromised computers. There can be keyloggers – these are software or hardware modules primarily meant to steal passwords and other sensitive inputs as they are typed into a terminal.
• Increase the security level of your web browser to maximum and add only trusted safe sites to it.
• Prefer using plain text messages over full HTML and XHTML. It reduces the risk of getting targeted by phishing attack.
• Remember the more your email id will remain visible in the confines of cyber world, the more it will increase the chances of getting spam. You should set some filters and rules to avoid the unwanted mails.

Remember a little awareness can prevent great losses. Hope these few email security tips will help you out!