How to secure your email
Have you ever received an email log in notification that wasn’t you? Have you ever thought an email looked suspicious? Do you have a strong password protecting your email account? These are very important questions to ask yourself. Securing your email is vital to protecting yourself online and in the real world. Internet threats are becoming more and more prevalent each day and taking steps to protect yourself can significantly reduce these risks. Here are some steps you can take to securing your (business & personal) email:
Password Managers
Password managers are a good way to keep your passwords in one central location and keep them secure. Most password managers have password generators that can create complex passwords with numbers, letters, symbols, etc. These passwords will be harder to crack than using 3 different variants of the same password. Another great advantage to using password managers is that they’re easy to use! Most have an autofill feature that allows the user to press a button and their information is plugged in automatically. 1Password is great for home/personal and even has business options.
Two-Factor Authentication
Two-factor authentication is an excellent option when securing your email account or any account for that matter. This gives another layer of security when signing into accounts, sometimes it is a code, request, or text message. Some users believe two-factor authentication is an annoyance and do not use it, however it is a way to additional security to your account. Comparing the time it takes to put in a code or accept a request to the layer of security this adds to a user’s account is truly a no-brainer. If a hacker does manage to break through a user’s password, 2FA will prove another challenge for the hacker and in most cases save the user’s account. At Midshore Technology Services, we assist our customers in (and by default) implement 2FA on all accounts we manage.
Use Encryption
Encrypting your email is another way to keep user’s privacy secret. For example, when sending an email which contains private/personal information such as photo-IDs, banking information, or any other information which, if compromised, would cause damage to you financially or personally, you should encrypt the email. Email services such as Outlook offer native (built in) encryption capabilities while Google and others require 3rd party apps to do this.
Fight against phishing & scams
Phishing emails are a tremendous threat online today that have the potential to lead to ransomware, viruses, and much more. The most effective protection against phishing is end-user training. Whether that’s you as an individual or a company provided training to its employees. Phishing is not always sent to user’s spam inboxes or sent to junk. Most phishing emails look like real people reaching out, but the malicious link takes you to harmful websites that have the potential to infect user’s PCs with malware. Here at Midshore Technology Services, we use software that is equipped with the tools necessary to weed out these harmful emails from our customer’s email to prevent attacks.
Next steps
Taking these extra steps to protect user’s email will not be effective 100% of the time, but will help give users a better defense against hackers and malicious threats online. If you believe your email may have been compromised, or if you’d like to take steps to better protect your business email, contact us to get started.
