[the-facts-machine] Are You Extremely Careless with Email?
- From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <the-facts-machine@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 14:22:51 -0400
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Are YOU extremely careless with email? Steve Weisman, Special for USA TODAY
When FBI Director James Comey recently testified before Congress about his
totally appropriate decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton for what he
described as her "extremely careless" use of emails during her tenure as
Secretary of State, it prompted me to think about how many of us are also
careless when we do our own emailing. The consequences of not taking proper
precautions when the general public uses email will not possibly endanger
national security, but they can lead to the company you work for being hacked,
leading to a data breach as we saw with many companies such as Target and even
government agencies such as the Office of Management and Budget. It can also
lead, as it did with a number of celebrities such as Jennifer Lawrence, to
having embarrassing photographs or videos made public. It can lead to your
identity being stolen and your bank account hacked. It can even lead to your
becoming a victim of ransomware and facing the danger of all of your computer's
data being held hostage. The list goes on and on.
The bad news is that failure to take proper precautions in how you use email
puts you in extreme danger. The good news is that there a number of simple
steps
that you can take to be a more careful user of email. Here is a list of things
you should be doing:
1. Having a strong password is still the starting point to being more secure
with anything you do online and it is important to have a unique password for
every online account so that if your password is stolen through a data breach
of
another company with which you do business, your email security will not be
jeopardized. A strong password will have capital letters, small letters and
symbols. A good way to pick one is to use a phrase, such as It'saStrongPassword
and then for good measure add a couple of *** at the end to make your base
password It'saStrongPassword***. You can then customize this password for each
of your accounts to make unique, easy to remember passwords by merely adding a
couple of letters at the end of this base password so, for instance, your
online banking password could be It'saStrongPassword***BOA.
2. Sarah Palin had her email account hacked and taken over by a hacker who
merely answered her security question which enabled him to change her password.
Her security question was where did she meet her husband and the answer was
easily obtained through her Wikipedia page. You may think that you are not as
famous as Sarah Palin and the answers to your security questions are not as
readily available, but the truth is that not only are there many available data
banks easily accessed which can provide the information necessary to answer
common security questions, but we also are often at fault by including too much
personal information about ourselves on social media that hackers use to get
information they can exploit as by answering security questions.
The solution, however, is simple. Merely use a nonsensical answer to your
security question so if the question is what is your mother's maiden name, make
the answer "phonograph" and don't worry about remembering it because it is
silly
enough for you to easily remember.
3. You also may want to take advantage of dual factor authentication for your
email account such that when you log on to your email account, a special code
is
sent to your smartphone that you must input before you can access your account.
This will greatly enhance your security.
4. Don't store sensitive information, data, photos or videos on your
smartphone
or email account and regularly back up all of your data from all of your
electronic devices to help protect you from ransomware.
5. Encrypt your emails when you are sending sensitive messages or information.
There are many good, free encryption services such as Infoencrypt
https://www.infoencrypt.com/ and Virtru
https://www.virtru.com/
6. Install strong security software including anti-phishing software on all of
your electronic devices which you use for email and make sure that you
constantly update your security software. However, it is important to note that
even if you have the most up to date security software on your computer or
other
electronic devices, the best security software is always at least a month
behind
the latest malware programs used by hackers.
7. The most important thing you can do to protect your security when using
email
is to avoid phishing emails and spear phishing emails specifically targeted to
you that attempt to lure you into clicking on links or downloading attachments
that may contain malware that can cause you to unwittingly install malware that
can steal the information from your email, your computer, your laptop or your
smartphone and use that information to make you a victim of identity theft.
Trust me, you can't trust anyone. You may trust an email and click on a link
contained in the email because it appears to come from someone you know and
trust, but the truth may be that your friend's email account may have been
hacked. A good rule to follow is to never click on any link or download any
attachment until you have confirmed that the email sending them is legitimate.
Remember, even paranoids have enemies.
Are you scared? You should be, but by taking these seven steps you can make
your
email use much safer.
Steve Weisman is a lawyer, a professor at Bentley University and one of the
country's leading experts in scams and identity theft. He writes the blog'
scamicide.com , where he provides daily update information about the latest
scams. His new book is' Identity Theft Alert. Steve Weisman, an expert in
preventing
cyberscams and identity theft, is a lawyer and professor at Bentley University.
He writes the blog scamicide.com , where he provides daily update information
about the latest scams. His new book is Identity Theft Alert.
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