With the ever-increasing flow of spam messages today, spammers are constantly coming up with new ways to get into your inbox.
You and your employees depend on secure email messaging every day. However, just like your network, your emails are at constant risk from computer spam, viruses, and malware.
If your emails are breached, your confidential information could be stolen. When this happens, your organisation could be hit with severe penalties and lawsuits.
Below we share some effective ways to fend off the worst of these offenders.
Outlook
Using Outlook, the most common way to access your Microsoft Office 365 mailbox, just click on any message and scroll down to “Junk” where you can choose to “Block Sender.”
In the pop-up box that appears, you can make adjustments for all of the messages that come into your inbox. Just be careful, because you don’t want to limit any legitimate messages.
Check out the “Safe Senders” tab where you can add email addresses that you never want to be added to your Junk Mail. It’s as simple as selecting the email and using the Add, Edit, and Remove options on the right as you can see below.
The same goes for your Junk Email Options. You can construct a list of email addresses that you always want to save as Junk. This helps you build up your list of spammers or anyone you want to block automatically.
If you’re working on the web version of Outlook, all you have to do is go to the cog on the top right of the screen and click “Options.”
It will bring up the same options you had in the desktop version of Outlook but laid out in a slightly different fashion.
Phishing
Have you ever received an email that looked like it was from your bank or a credit card company, but something seemed “fishy” about it?
This email could be a phishing attempt.
Phishing is when a scammer uses fraudulent emails, texts, or fake websites to get you or your employees to click a link so they can steal confidential data like account numbers, login IDs, and passwords. They use this information to create false identities or hack into your online accounts.
They also use phishing emails to obtain access to your computer or network so they can install malicious programs like ransomware to lock you out of your files until you pay a ransom.
Phishing scammers try to lure you into a false sense of security through spoofing, where they pretend to be a trusted source like a legitimate company, a colleague, vendor, or even a friend or family member.
They create a sense of urgency, making it seem like your information is required right away or else something terrible will happen. They may threaten to put a hold on your bank account or credit card. One of their weapons is to use fear to get you to do something without thinking.
Be cautious about opening attachments and clicking links in emails. Files and links may contain malware that can infect and weaken your computer’s security.
You and your staff must learn to recognise spam and phishing messages and designate them as Junk and Spam. Whatever you do, don’t open these emails or attachments. Use the tactics we described above where you simply click on the message and send it to Junk for good.
Email Security
Email Security Specialists can help ensure your emails are kept private and secure. They can help you keep everything secure both when in transit and storage. Plus, they can do this for emails that are sent to and from your mobile devices.
How do IT professionals provide email security?
They employ:
- Outbound Mail Scanning, so if one of your computers is infected with a virus, outgoing mail services aren’t affected. This keeps your business off spam lists and blacklists.
- Security Awareness Training so your staff can detect a phishing attempt. Security Awareness Training is important to help your staff recognise email exploits.
- Anti-Spam Solutions that scan incoming mail, and stop spam, viruses, and phishing attempts.
Backups
Whatever you do, always back up your files to an external hard drive and enterprise-based cloud storage. Make sure you do this regularly (daily) to ensure you have a duplicate of all your files, emails, and applications just in case your network is compromised.
Your IT services provider can assess your business needs and help you choose the backup and recovery solution that’s best for your requirements. There are many options for businesses that aren’t readily available to consumers. Your business needs more than consumer-based data protection so you should look into this. It’s well worth your time.
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