What is spam?
Every user has at least once faced spam and tried to fight with these annoying advertising messages littering email. How can you guard your email against spam? How dangerous is it for your computer?
Spam is anonymous bulk messages sending. As a rule these are advertising messages. People sending these messages make a profit out of people responding to them. Though in most cases spam does not pose a threat to your computer security fraudsters can use it to spread viruses, various malware and carry out phishing attacks.
From the history of spam
Initially spam was sent to isolated email addresses and was easy to block. However, recently the sphere of its application has significantly increased. With appearance of high-speed channels swindlers got a possibility of quick mass mailing. Also spammers found out that they could use modems of separate users to send bulk messages. Thus, users' modems were used without their owners' even knowing about it.
With the lapse of time manufacturers learned how to protect their equipment against spam. Later they started upgrading these very spam filters. However, one should not underestimate spam. More and more new spam types appear able to bypass such filters. Such face-off between spam and Internet defenders never ceases even today.
How can you protect your system?
Follow these easy rules to decrease the volume of spam sent to your email (or totally get rid of it):
- Never publish your email address on public resources.
- Use several email addresses: for personal mail and for registering on various forums, chat rooms and public sites.
- In case you have to make your address public on some resource change it somehow so that spammers could not detect it. For example, john-dot-taylor-at-gmail-com instead of john.taylor@gmail.com
- Try to avoid mentioning your real first and second name in the email address. So, you should make up a hard address for spammers to guess.
- View your email as a temporary one. If you have noticed that more and more spam is sent there just change the address. It may be not so convenient to do but it will allow you to get rid of irritating spam messages.
- Try to use email boxes provided by services ensuring anti-spam protection.
- Install anti-spam solution on your computer.
- Keep your web browser updated.
- Never respond to spam messages.
- Never follow the links offering you to "reject mailing". In such way you confirm your active using this email, that's why spammers will keep on sending bulk messages.