We have seen a lot of SPAM email in our inboxes lately and between SPAM and Phishing (scams designed to steal your private information), some days it feels like there is more garbage in our in-boxes then there is legitimate email. Each day ITS blocks more than 300,000 SPAM emails. However, it is a fine balancing act — to turn away the most obvious SPAM but allow all other messages through.
The good news is that there are definite steps you can take to reduce the amount of SPAM that ends up in your in-box! The first step is to understand how SPAM works. In most cases, the recipient has to do something to help the spammer determine that they indeed have a good email address. In short, don’t make it easy for them. Remember, it will take some time and diligence to reduce and prevent your address from being used. So, where practical and possible employ the following methods to help.
Tips to Avoid Spam
- Watch out for checkboxes: When you sign up for something on the Web, there is often some innocent-looking text at the end of the form saying something like: “YES, I want to be contacted by select third parties concerning products I might be interested in.” Quite often, the checkbox next to that text is already checked and your email address will be given to you don’t know who.
- Do not click on unusual links. Confirm the sender did send the e-mail if it looks suspicious.
- Use throw-away accounts (like yahoo, MSN or other free services) when filling out web forms or signing up for any service that you are not certain how they will treat you information.
- Do not click on the links in SPAM messages, including unsubscribe links. These frequently contain a code that identifies the e-mail address of the recipient, and can confirm the spam has been delivered and that you responded.
- When filling in Web forms, check the site’s privacy policy to ensure it will not be sold or passed on to other companies. There may be a checkbox to opt out of third party mailings. Consider opting out to receive less opt-in e-mail.
- Read your messages as text - Turn off the ability to view pictures, HTML, movies, and formatted text for emails you don’t know. This prevents you from accidentally clicking a link or downloading adware, spyware, or viruses without knowing it. Some email providers like Google and Hotmail automatically block these things from appearing in emails from senders not familiar to you. Don’t change these settings.
- Never respond to spam. If you reply, even to request removing your e-mail address from the mailing list, you are confirming that your e-mail address is valid and the spam has been successfully delivered to your inbox, not filtered by a spam filter, that you opened the message, read the contents, and responded to the spammer. Lists of confirmed e-mail addresses are more valuable to spammers than unconfirmed lists, and they are frequently bought and sold by spammers.
- Do not open SPAM messages wherever possible. Frequently spam messages include “Web beacons” enabling the spammer to determine how many, or which e-mail addresses have received and opened the message.
- Never buy any goods from spammers. The spammers rely on very small percentages of people responding to spam and buying goods. If spamming becomes unprofitable and takes lots of effort for little return, spammers have less incentive to continue spamming. Would you risk giving your credit card details to an unknown, un-reputable source?
- Do not post your e-mail address in an un-obfuscated form on the Internet. If you need to post your e-mail address, obfuscate it so it cannot be easily harvested such as “name (at) hotmail (dot) com,” Or if you need to include your e-mail address in your signature, include a small graphic image containing your e-mail address.
- Check to see if your e-mail address is visible to spammers by typing it into a Web search engine such as www.google.com. If your e-mail address is posted to any Web sites or newsgroups, remove it if possible to help reduce how much SPAM you receive.
- Don’t participate in forwards and chain-emails and ask your friends not to send you them – Forwarded and chain-emails tend to list the email addresses of everyone who has forwarded the message, along with the email addresses of everyone they forwarded the message to. This is an easy target for spammers to find long lists of email addresses to target. Be especially wary of signing any sort of petition too, since these can be created by spammers for the list of names and email addresses.
- When replying to newsgroup postings, do not include your e-mail address.
Tips to Avoid Being Phished
- Do not respond to e-mail requests to validate or confirm any of your account details. Your bank, credit card company, eBay, Paypal, etc., already have your account details, so would not need you to validate them. If you are unsure if a request for personal information from a company is legitimate, contact the company directly or type the Web site URL directly into your browser.
- Avoid clicking on the links in e-mail messages, as they may be fake links that can be used to trick you into providing information.
- Make sure the site you think you are on is the real site. Most phishing scams have created a site that appears strikingly similar to the real site. Always check the URL bar to verify the address. For example: http://plymouth.edu is not the same as http://plymouth.eu so pay close attention to the URL spelling… It matters.
Last but not least, please contact the ITS helpdesk if you have any questions or concerns. We can be reached at 535-2929 or via email at helpdesk@plymouth.edu
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Sources: http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/internet/page4782.cfm, http://www.spamlaws.com/prevent-spam.html, http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA011194221033.aspx
