Email provides us a convenient and powerful communications tool. Unfortunately, it also provides scammers and other malicious individuals an easy means for luring potential victims. The scams they attempt run from old-fashione d bait-and-switch operations to phishing schemes using a combination of email and bogus web sites to trick victims into divulging sensitive information. To protect yourself from these scams, you should understand what they are, what they look like, how they work, and what you can do to avoid them. The following recommendations can minimize your chances of falling victim to an email scam:
- Filter spam
- Don’t trust unsolicited email
- Treat email attachments with caution
- Don’t click links in email messages
- Install antivirus software and keep it up to date
- Install a personal firewall and keep it up to date
- Configure your email client for security
Recognizing Email Scams Unsolicited commercial email, or “spam,” is the starting point for many email scams. Before the advent of email, a scammer had to contact each potential victim individually by post, fax, telephone, or through direct pe rsonal contact. These methods would often require a significant investment in time and money. To improve th e chances of contacting susceptible victims, the scammer might have had to do advance research on the “marks” he or she targeted. Email has changed the game for scammers. The convenience and anonymity of email, along with the capability it provides for easily contacting thousands of people at once, enables scammers to work in volume. Scammers only need to fool a small percentage of the tens of thousands of people they email for their ruse to pay off. For tips on reducing spam in your email in-box, see US-CERT Cyber Security Tip ST04-007, “Reducing Spam”: http://www.us cert.gov/cas/tips/ST04-007.html
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