Top ways to reduce email spam

Last Updated on Thursday, 10 November 2011 07:32 Written by jsconners Wednesday, 9 November 2011 10:48

I would consider myself a “spam connoisseur”, meaning that I have become rather discriminating in my “spam diet”. Let’s face it, with the proliferation of automated million-node botnets, spam is now and will continue to be a fact of life on the Internet. There are ways you can  greatly reduce your load and here are the top ways that I know of. If you have any others please feel free to comment:

How to detect email phishing the easy way

Last Updated on Wednesday, 9 November 2011 10:56 Written by jsconners Friday, 4 November 2011 05:14

Phishing can be tricky to detect sometimes and spear-phishing a more targeted version is even more insidious. An easier way to recall what to look for is to memorize this phrase:

“SEALs eat Phish”

What the heck does this mean your asking yourself…allow me to explain…SEAL is an acronym for the identifying traits of a phishing attack:

Top signs an email is fake

Last Updated on Tuesday, 8 November 2011 03:53 Written by jsconners Thursday, 3 November 2011 06:54

So your friend who you haven’t spoken with in 5 years just sent you a “catching-up” email which looks something like this:

To: Jack Jones
From: Jane Smith

Subject: Check this out!

Message:

Hey check this out it really funny fun link

Now ask yourself this…why would someone you have not spoken with in 5 years send you a “click this” link without any formalities? They probably wouldn’t (unless they are “socially challenged”)…this email is fake

How to detect an “Impersonation Attack” against your email

Last Updated on Tuesday, 8 November 2011 03:46 Written by jsconners Wednesday, 2 November 2011 10:44

An “Impersonation Attack” (a.k.a. “Joe Job”) is a clever social engineering trick often used by spammers and in phishing scams. Here are the basic elements:

• Create a spam or phishing email message
• Get a list of email accounts that are related
• Pick an address from the list and send a faked email “from” (required) that address “reply to” that address (optional)
• Wait for recipients to do whatever it was you intended them to do (click link in message, open attachment, call a number, etc.)

6 ways to tell if your email has been hacked

Last Updated on Thursday, 3 November 2011 04:25 Written by jsconners Tuesday, 1 November 2011 11:38

There is no doubting the increase of email accounts being hacked and hijacked for the purposes of sending spam or running phishing campaigns. Most of these are being done in a automated fashion through malware like bots. If you think you may be a victim of an account intrusion you can begin by checking for these symptoms:

How to recover a hacked email account

Last Updated on Thursday, 10 November 2011 07:32 Written by jsconners Friday, 14 October 2011 04:30

If you are one of the unfortunate people who have had their online email account hijacked you may be spending some quality time with technical support trying to prove that YOU ARE YOU and not a hacker. After all, you wouldn’t want just anyone to be able to act like they were you  and get your password changed.