The do's and don'ts of spam

13 December 2004

Spam accounts for up to 90% of the email scanned by CITEC's security solutions partner, MessageLabs. Thankfully, there are some simple steps you can take to safeguard your inbox from unwanted emails.

The do's of spam

• Select an email address that is fairly obscure - instead of bob@hotmail.com try a mixture of letters and numbers in a random order (that you can remember). You might also want to try using one of the less well-known email hosting companies.
• Consider having a secondary email address - this can be used when filling out registration forms, surveys, subscribing to newsletters, etc.
• Deselect the ‘further information/promotional’ offers box as appropriate.
• Use the blind copy field when sending an email to a large number of recipients - email addresses in the 'to' field can be harvested by spammers.
• Ignore delivery failure receipts for messages you did not send.
• Consider having a set of business cards without your email address included. These can be given to people/businesses you don't know and trust. You can always supply them with your email address at a later date if needed.
• Ask your ISP what it is doing to alleviate the problem if you have a home email account.
• Consider your responsibility to your friends' and colleagues' email addresses - take similar precautionary measures as you would with your own.
• Think about ditching your current email address and setting up a new account if you are unfortunate enough to have an inbox that is continually deluged with spam.

The don'ts of spam

• Preview or open an email that is obviously spam.
• Reply to a spam email.
• Click on any links within a spam email - including the unsubscribe links.
• Buy anything advertised by a spam email - this will identify you as someone the spammers can make money from.
• Open an unsolicited message unless it is from someone you know and trust - this rule applies to avoiding security breaches in general, and it shouldn't be forgotten that spam can contain viruses and other malicious exploits.
• Post your email address on your website or in newsgroups - many spammers trawl the Internet for as many addresses as they can find.
• Give your email address to anyone or any website you don't trust.

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