06/20/2020
SPAM, SCAM or…
What is “spam”?
When not referring to the tasty canned meat product, spam is unsolicited junk email sent broadly in bulk, often for commercial purposes. Much of it is sent by botnets, networks of virus-infected computers, complicating the process of tracing the spammers. According to countless assessments, about 80% of all email in the world may actually be spam.
If you've received a spam email that you think someone should know about, or if you accidentally clicked on or responded to a suspicious email, you can submit it to the FTC.
What is "phishing?"
Phishing is the practice of defrauding users into giving up their usernames, passwords, credit card numbers and other personal information. Phishing emails will often try to get you to click on links that take you to fake websites; they often pretend to be from organizations such as a bank, PayPal, Amazon or even your own company.
Recent phishing scams have been improving their disguises—but always be cautious. NO ONE should ever ask you for your personal passwords, and you should never give them out, not even to tech support! Why would they need your personal banking, PayPal, or shopping information anyway?
Click here for some clues that an email might be a phishing scam.
Why am I getting spam from myself?
Spammers are adept at faking the origin of their emails, and it is relatively easy to imitate the "FROM" address on an email, just as it would be easy to write anyone's return address on an envelope. If you get a message that claims to be from you, it might be “spoofing” rather than originating from your email account; it doesn't necessarily mean you've been hacked either. Because of a phony "FROM" address, you might also be getting bounced-email notifications about emails you never sent. Again, this doesn't necessarily mean a hacker has real access to your account, just that a spammer was hiding behind your email address.
On the other hand, cracking passwords for free email sites (Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.), or other sites with weak security, is an easy job for hackers. Now might be a good time to change your password — be sure to pick a strong password for all your email accounts, and remember: your passwords should be different for each account you have. If one is compromised, they don’t have access to all the others you have with that same password.
What should I do about spam?
If an email is obviously spam (enhancement pills, the person of your dreams, or benefactor of a will looking for you, anyone?), or probably spam (obviously poor attempts to mimic a business or an individual) you should just delete it.
And if there's a lot of spam landing in your inbox, there may be ways you can cut it down.
Occasionally, however, it's difficult to tell if it’s authentic. Try and use these tips and tools to help keep the annoying junk to a minimum in your inbox.
Anti-spam filter
This identifies incoming spam and tags it. The other two options —Webmail filtering and email program filtering — can't work without it.
Webmail filtering
This is the most effective way to kill spam. A Webmail spam filter can filter or discard spam before it enters your Inbox.
Email filtering
You can configure your email program so that it moves spam headed for your Inbox into a "Trash," "Antispam," or "Junk" folder instead.
Email Scams are becoming ever more refined and specifically targeted. Even an email that seems to come from a familiar source could still be fake. Before you click on a link in ANY email, hover the mouse over a link first and check to make sure the target matches the real URL or website — or, visit the organization's website by typing in their URL on your own. If the email seems to be from someone you know, check with that person before responding to the message…call them.
If you're uncertain about an email, you should err on the side caution and delete. ALWAYS delete any phishing emails from your inbox.
Remember:
NEVER CLICK ON LINKS in unsolicited email.
NEVER DOWNLOAD FILES from suspicious email.
NEVER GIVE OUT YOUR PASSWORD to anyone.
When in doubt, DON'T.
