We hear about cyber attacks on the news every day. Some of us, unfortunately, have actually experienced them. These incidences are becoming a starker reality for organizations and businesses by the day irrespective of size or industry. The media, business leaders, and the government maintain that for every business out there, cyber attacks aren’t a question of ‘if’ anymore, but ‘when.’ The clamor is barely effective when it comes to minimizing devastating effects.
Seeing as email is one of the most popular forms of communication in the corporate world, virtually every business is at risk of a email hacking and phishing attacks, so here are 5 easy steps to help you ramp up your defenses.
Avoid Phishing Scams
Email is still the number 1 delivery vehicle for most malware. Phishing scams work by tricking you into opening an attachment or clicking a link. Once you do that, you either download malware into your computer or you are taken to a website that looks real but isn’t, and your login credentials are stolen. Do not click on links or load attachments on sketchy emails. Phishing scams have been around since the birth of the internet, and they are not going away any time soon. In fact, phishing scams are becoming more advanced.
Don’t Click on Tracking Links or Images
Sometimes, emails from marketers and certain brands have tracking links embedded in them to spy on you. They want to find out how many people opened the email or even clicked on the link. Change the settings on your email client to ensure that attachments don’t load automatically by default. Additionally, use antivirus software to protect against new technology workarounds and loopholes in tracking and email phishing scams. Make sure your antivirus software, as well as your browser, are always up to date.
Use PGP Encryption
There are plenty of software options you can use to encrypt your emails to ensure that they are only read by the intended recipients. Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), also called GNU Privacy Guard (GPG), is one of them. PGP encryption helps you keep hackers from intercepting, snooping on, or altering your emails before they are delivered to the recipients. When using PGP, no information is left in the open. Both the sender and the recipient need to have this free software installed on their computers for it to work.
Use TLS
Always use Transport Layer Security, or TLS, on your browser. While software solutions such as PGP encrypt the contents of your email, your communication is still vulnerable if the connection itself is not encrypted. TLS encrypts the connection between your device and the browser as well as the email servers involved. To activate TLS, go to your browser settings and select ‘STARTTLS’ or ‘SSL/TLS’ in connection security. Always make sure that you are using an encrypted channel when using external email clients such as Thunderbird, Apple Mail, and Outlook.
Create Strong Passwords
Last but not least, create strong passwords for your email and other online accounts. A lot of people still don’t have strong, unique passwords for all their online accounts. The problem is that most people don’t know what a strong password is or how to create one. Well, ideally, a strong password combines letters (upper case and lower case), numbers, and special characters. It’s simple, the password should be long, random, and unique. When it comes to creating a password, the random part is usually the hardest for most people.
Our brains simply don’t function that way. But with a random password generator, you can create a long, random, and unique password in a matter of seconds. That way, it will be impossible for hackers to force their way into your email account using brute force (brute forcing involves the use of software to create possible password combinations). It doesn’t matter how many characters your password is. If it’s not random, your account can be easily breached. Use a password manager to store your passwords if you are worried that you’ll forget them.