Email Security

Users in today's world face the increasing risk of being victims of hacking and malware, and often hackers target them through their email. Virtually every "sophisticated" hack of an individual or business starts with a relatively phishing attack.

Phishing is a social-engineering attack where an adversary crafts an email in such a way to trick you into divulging information that could be used against you or your network; gain access to, and ultimately commandeer your account; or introduce malware and/or viruses to your machine.

Email Security Tips

• Enable 2 Step Authentication
• Sometimes the "From" field is lying to you - The "from" field in your emails can be forged to trick you. Scrutinizing the email headers might tip you off to a forgery. However, not all email clients make this clear, or alert you to when someone is attempting to trick you this way. Here’s an example of this attack in action: an email claiming to come from a legitimate gmail address arrives in my inbox, but was not sent from one of Gmail’s real servers. This is why there is a yellow phishing warning at the top of the message.
• Beware Attachments - Attachments can carry malware and viruses, and commonly accompany phishing emails. The best way to avoid malware from attachments is to never download them. As a cardinal rule, don’t open any attachments immediately, especially if they come from people you do not know. If you are suspicious of an attachment, ask the person that sent you the document to copy-paste the text in the email.
• Click Links with Caution - Be skeptical of links in emails. There’s a simple trick for making sure a link in an email will send you to where it’s supposed to: use your mouse to hover over any link before clicking on it, to see what the actual URL is. If you click on any link from an email, and are asked to log in, do not do it.