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Email Safety Tips for Your Organization

Email is still so popular compared to IM, Facebook and other communication methods that it is still the most common attack method for phishers, spammers, and virus creators.  No matter how good you think your filtering and firewall applications are, you still have to be on the ball every time you open an email message.

Here are some of the most fundamental ways you can safeguard your communications:

• Carefully consider rendering HTML or XHTML emails - If you are using Outlook, for example, you should consider configuring it to render only simplified HTML, not rich.  Plain text, while not attractive, is by fair the safest delivery method.  Rendering HTML opens you up as identifying yourself as a valid recipient of spam or getting successfully phished by malicious individuals in cyberspace.

• Use a local POP3 or IMAP email client to retrieve email - Avoid the use of web-based email services such as Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo Mail.  Some email providers have been accused of selling addresses to spamming partners.  If you consider it personal and private, don’t trust it to a web-based service.

• Ensure that your email authentication process is encrypted - If it’s unencrypted, attackers can listen in on your authentication session with the mail server, allowing them to potentially send email messages disguised as you, then receive your email and cause you all kinds of problems.  Be sure to check your ISP’s policies to ensure that your authentication process is encrypted.

• Turn off automatic addressing features - Especially in Outlook, it is very easy to choose the wrong recipient from an auto-filled drop down list when you’re in a hurry.  Whether it’s business secrets or gossip, sending the wrong email to the wrong person accidentally can sometimes have very serious consequences.

• Avoid using unsecured networks - When communicating via email, your email security does not affect only you.  If your email account is compromised and your address book gets hijacked, it could affect every one of your contacts or everyone in your company.  If you must access an email account that does not authorize over an encrypted connection, then be sure to never access that account from a public or otherwise unsecure network.  You would only be opening yourself and your email account up to more risk than it’s worth.

This article brought to you by Real Deal Technologies, an SEO company.