How to Keep Your Email Account Safe?

Email is one of the largest forms of communication in the world. People the world over have stopped writing standard letters and have begun using email more and more each year.

However, that does not mean that email is the safest thing on the planet either. Even on the internet there are millions of people that would like nothing more than to gain access to your computer and steal your vital information.

This is why it is so important for you to keep your email accounts safe. If you are not taking steps towards this then you may already be infected with some kind of computer virus or hacker attack.

That is where you need to be aware of what you are doing when it comes to email. Below you are going to find some standard tips and tricks that will keep your email address and account out of the hands of the hackers, spammers and viruses of the world.

Privacy
You should keep your email address private at all times. There are many sites that allow for social interaction with other members and at the same time they allow you to display your email address. This is not a good thing. If you choose to display your email address then you are opening yourself up to attack. There are software programs out there that allow the spammers of the world to harvest email addresses remotely from these types of sites.

Security
You should a good virus protection, firewall and email scanning system in place. This is going to be your first line of defense against the attacks on your system. The email scanning system will scan all incoming mail for possible threats. If there is a threat then you will be alerted and you can then delete the email without a problem. There are many people that have stopped using these programs because they feel as though they are too strict. These are the people that have obviously never been hacked.

Prevention
Prevention is the key to positive steps in email protection. You first need to make a white list. This is a list of all the known email addresses that will contact you on a regular basis. If an email comes in that is not on the white list then it will go to the junk mail folder. Now you are going to be able to see the moved emails and if there is one that you wanted to receive then you can white list the sender.

Not opening forwards and attachments is a great idea as well. You have to be sure with this one because many of the worst virus attacks are sent through mass emails.

You should always delete messages that have been forwarded numerous times through a series of people. Each of the people that have received and resent the message have had the opportunity to lace it with a virus or other malware that could destroy your entire computer.