Spam mail has been around forever, but with the digital world constantly evolving and growing it seems like there is more of it than ever. Aside from being an unwanted annoyance, spam mail has the potential to be dangerous and cause issues. The main issues that can arise from spam mail are social engineering and malware, which both can be detrimental to your organization.
What is Anti-Spam?
When discussing spam, we’re primarily talking about spam in your email, which brings us to the purpose of anti-spam: to reduce the amount of spam in your email inboxes. Anti-spam software is designed to automatically filter out spam from your email inboxes with the end goal of reducing the likelihood of you falling for a social engineering tactic aimed at either obtaining your personal information (name, password, social security number, etc.) or installing malware into your device. Anti-spam can stop 99% of spam from entering your organization’s network, block malware attacks, and declutter email inboxes.
Importance of Ant-Spam Software
The importance of having anti-spam software in place really boils down to data security for your organization and employees. Spam emails with malicious intent are aimed at either gathering personal information or installing malware into devices. If one user unintentionally downloads malware or provides their password through a social engineering spam email your whole organization’s network can be at risk for ransomware, trojans, and other cybersecurity threats. Anti-spam software provides peace of mind, and a decluttered organized inbox increases productivity and allows for high priority important emails to not be missed or go unnoticed.
Password Protection Tips
You might be wondering how password protection fits into the equation of anti-spam software, and the answer lies in the core issue of spam emails. Most spam is asking you to sign up for something, or showing you discounts on products you may have viewed online, and malicious spam can be framed the same way. For example, a spam email could be a phishing scam, stating something along the lines of your account has been compromised, or your payment didn’t go through, and it’s asking you to sign in or change your password. If you were to fall for that scam and log in, the username and password you provide could be one that you use for other services, websites, or even your work login which was now given to the sender of the phishing scam. Having strong knowledge on password protection is becoming increasingly more important as our lives shift more and more online. Here are some tips to help keep your accounts and privacy safe:
Password Tips:
- Don’t use the same password for all of your logins
- If one is compromised they all are
- Longer passwords are stronger
- A good rule of thumb is to have your passwords be at least 12 characters long
- Include numbers and symbols, as well as uppercase and lowercase characters
- Simple passwords, such as words in the dictionary are easier to crack than random characters
- Even if it’s multiple words in a row
- Never write your password down
- Use a password manager
What is a password manager? A password manager is an application that stores all of the various passwords you use to log into websites and other applications. They encrypt the information making it nearly impossible to crack and eliminate the need to memorize many different complex passwords. Some will also have password generators that will generate a strong password made up of random numbers, symbols, and characters that will be saved for you.
If you’d like to learn more about anti-spam software and password protection, reach out to our IT team: Contact Us
Sources: INFOSEC | GCF Global | mimecast