Tips to Avoid Infected Emails
Avoid Infected Emails
What is an infected email?
An infected email is electronic mail that contains content that could be harmful to your computer and personal information. These emails are often disguised as normal attempts at communication, but ultimately serve to add spyware, malware, or a virus. Learning how to identify an infected email, can save you from opening you and your employer up to unnecessary vulnerabilities.
How do you know?
Whenever you come across an unusual email (unrecognized sender, unrelated subject), take a moment to ask yourself these questions:
- Do you recognize the sender and the domain that is coming from?
- Do you recognize the email subject?
- Is it asking for money?
- Is it telling you that you won something?
What can you do?
– Do not even attempt to open the email. If it’s not from someone that you know or it is completely irrelevant to your work, then most likely it doesn’t need to be read.
– Do not open attachments: .ZIP, .7ZIP, or .EXE as well Word or Excel files from unknown sources.
– Avoid clicking on any links within the email. These links could lead to downloading unknown software onto your computer, even though it may look as if you are viewing a promotional offer.
– Do not forward emails if you cannot open them.
– Mark as spam. Most email services offer some level of spam filtering and provide a built-in spam folder for your use. As the email user you can take advantage of this spam feature and mark items as spam that arrive in your email in box that you feel do not belong.
– Block the sender. If you are a Microsoft Outlook user you have the ability to block the specific senders. Blocking the sender will block all future emails from the sender. Additionally, if you subscribe to Netgain Network email security services you can block the sender right from the bottom of the email message.
How do I mark an email as spam/junk in Outlook?
- Right-click the unwanted e-mail.
- Scroll down and select Junk
- Select Block Sender
How do I block an email sender using Netgain’s email security service?
- On the bottom of the unwanted e-mail.
- Left-click on Block this sender
- Login to the SPAM filter using your e-mail address
- Verify success message that the user was blocked