Your email inbox might as well be your entire life. You may\nnot realize that your inbox has just about everything a hacker could ever want\nor need to own your entire life. Both your personal email and your business\nemail pose a serious liability if you haven\u2019t fortified them against hackers\nand familiarized yourself with the best safety practices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why\nHackers Love Email<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n You need an email address to do almost anything. Every\naccount you have required an email address for verification. Your social media,\nyour banking information, and your online bill payments require that email\naddress. It essentially serves as your identity online. Think about everything\nyou have sitting in your inbox right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A hacker can gain access to your email and use the \u201cForgot\nPassword\u201d feature on almost every website you\u2019ve ever visited to reset your\npassword and lock you out of your account. Once they\u2019re inside, they have\naccess to any and all information stored within those accounts. Your email\naccount is a Russian nesting doll of every important, confidential, private, or\nsensitive thing you can ever do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hackers love to target businesses and organizations via\nemail attacks because all it takes is a single employee to make one lone\nmistake. That person gets hacked, and all the information in that person\u2019s\ninbox has fallen into a hacker\u2019s lap. The hacker can then send emails from that\naccount to other members of the company, creating the perfect social\nengineering scheme that most of that person\u2019s contacts are likely to fall for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Email is the key to everything, and one small mistake or\nunchecked vulnerability can leave a user prone to something as severe as\ncomplete identity theft. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Spotting\nSimple Threats<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n You and the people you work with need to be aware of common\nemail hacking methods. Merely knowing what to look for can make a world of\ndifference in preventing what can turn out to be a data disaster or the theft\nof every last cent in your bank account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fraudulent Emails<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Everyday email users are often targeted by scammers who are\npeople that promise to send them money for completing favors. In modern times,\nthe scam is somewhat tired. Most people are familiar with scams that involve\nprinces or millionaires in different countries pretending to need their help.\nThese scams have been exposed time and time again, although people do still\nfall into the trap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Businesses are also subject to fraudulent emails where the\nsender may pose as a customer or a client. Sophisticated scams will sometimes\ninvolve a hacker spoofing a higher up\u2019s email address to request information\nfrom a lower level employee. Always check senders. If a request seems odd, ask\nfor a phone call with the individual to verify the details and identity of that\nindividual. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Phishing <\/p>\n\n\n\n Phishing schemes are often successful. Typically, a phishing\nscheme will arrive in the form of a spoofed email from the account provider\nclaiming that a login attempt was made and a password needs to be changed to\nprotect the user\u2019s account. People believe these schemes because they seem like\nthe exact opposite of a scam \u2013 they believe they\u2019re doing something to keep\nthemselves safer. W<\/p>\n\n\n\n hen the user clicks the link, they\u2019re taken to a page where\nthey type in their password and submit it directly to the hacker. It\u2019s so\nincredibly easy for a malicious entity to merely ask for your password and\nreceive it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before you click any password reset link, make sure the\nsender is actually the person it appears to be. Look carefully for\ninconsistencies, typographical errors, or broken English. If you still aren\u2019t\nsure, contact the company directly at an email address you can verify belongs\nto them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Upping\nthe Security <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n User error is the largest vulnerability in the world.\nFailing to take steps to protect yourself or making simple mistakes may make\nthings easier for you in the moment, but they also make things easier for\nhackers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Start With Your Password<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The easiest way to get hacked is to use an easy password.\nThe simpler the password, the simpler it is for someone to gain access to your\naccount. Completely randomized passwords are harder to crack, especially when\nthey contain a case sensitive mixture of numbers, letters, and symbols. The\nlonger the password, the stronger it will be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Never use the same password for two accounts. If someone\ncompromises the password for one account, they can try it for other accounts.\nLeaving yourself vulnerable in one area can open up a string of\nvulnerabilities. Every random password should be distinct and unique. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lastly, change your passwords from time to time. If the\npasswords are strong and difficult, they won\u2019t need to be changed every few\nweeks. Creating new passwords once or twice a year can serve as an additional\ninsurance policy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Use Two Factor Authentication<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Most websites offer two factor authentication to verify that\nthe person logging in is the account holder. Usually, this involves texting a\ncode to the user\u2019s phone. After they\u2019ve entered their password, they\u2019ll need to\nenter the code as a second password. Some devices may utilize biometrics as a\nform of two factor authentication, and those are even trickier to bypass. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Hardware authenticators are among the strongest options for\ntwo factor authentication if biometrics are not available. These usually come\nin the form of portable USB devices that must be attached and read while\nlogging in in order to complete the action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Use\nEncrypted Email<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The easiest way to protect yourself from an email hack is to\nuse an encrypted email service and browse exclusively through a VPN. There\u2019s no\nway anyone is going to get any information from you or intercept your activity\nif they cannot see what you\u2019re doing and do not have the necessary encryption\nkeys to read your emails. <\/p>\n\n\n\n PrivateMail offers OpenPGP end-to-end encrypted email\nservice and paranoid encrypted cloud storage. No one will be able to access\nanything you do. We also offer top of the line security filtering that will\nreduce the potential that anything resembling phishing or fraud will ever enter\nyour inbox. Nobody besides you and the intended recipient \u2013 not even the\nPrivateMail team \u2013 will have any idea what exists in your inbox or cloud\nstorage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n