How to Make Your Email Safe

Email is one of the many ways that hackers and scammers can get into your computer and into your life. There is no way to make sure that nothing with the potential to harm you ever shows up in your inbox, but there are things that you can do to help keep you safe.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• An email account
• A computer with Internet access

1. Delete all email from people that you don’t know.
2. Do not open attachments unless they are from a trusted source and have been scanned by a virus scanner first.
3. Keep your personal email private except from people that you really want to hear from. You can set up a second email account for registering for public Web sites like message boards.

Tips & Warnings

• Always type in the address of the site you want to visit, e.g. paypal.com, versus clicking a link.
• Leave the header intact for the FTC should you need to forward spam. The header is the information that appears in the message box when you forward an email.
• Never open an email from someone that you don’t know. Unless it is a business account, no one that you don’t know should have or be able to use your email. Most of the excess is junk, and the rest is an attempt to scam you or sell to you.
• Never give out personal information over your email.
• Never use email links to get to important Web sites like eBay or PayPal.