Keep Personal Matters Out of Company Email:

Attackers sometimes gain access to websites used for personal activities like watching movies, paying utility bills, personal checking accounts, and more. Bad actors leverage this information to craft convincing email messages, enticing users to click on malicious links or open harmful attachments.

If your workers avoid using their business email for personal activities like online shopping or personal social media, then a phishing email related to these topics would immediately stand out as suspicious. They are much more likely to recognize the message as fake.

On the other hand, if they have used their business email for personal tasks like online shopping or social media, they’re at a higher risk for spear phishing when an attacker knows details about their activities. If they receive an ‘urgent message’ related to these personal tasks in their business email account, they might be more easily deceived into thinking it’s legitimate.

Worsened Notification Burden:

Another drawback of using work emails for personal matters is the heightened risk of exposing sensitive personal data. If employees use their work email to conduct personal business, such as insurance applications or other private matters, the likelihood of sensitive personal data residing on your servers increases. In the unfortunate event of a data breach, their sensitive information could necessitate you sending notification letters to affected parties, increasing your company’s expenses and vulnerability to potential lawsuits.

Personal Webmail on Company Devices is a Significant Security Risk:

The above situations refer to workers using their work address for personal use. But you must also address the issue of allowing employees to access personal webmail on company devices. IT departments have no control over the security of these personal email accounts. While your business email systems can have robust filters to block malicious links and attachments, allowing workers to access personal webmail sites can significantly reduce the overall security of your network, making your organization’s security as weak as the weakest personal email account.

To Enhance Security:

1. Ask your IT Team to limit email access on company devices to approved business email servers only.
2. Continuously remind employees to use their company email address exclusively for work-related matters.
3. Ask your IT team to block access to all webmail sites except those essential for business. If employees need to access personal email, they should do so on their personal devices. If connectivity is an issue and you must allow employees to connect personal devices to your Wi-Fi, use a separate “guest” network instead of the primary company network.

Conclusion:

By drawing clear boundaries between personal and professional email usage, you can reduce the risk of cyber threats and help protect your company and your employees. Please tell your associates and friends; spread the word.

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What will you do when you send invoices, but your customers never receive them?

When you reply to your customers’ email messages, and they never receive your reply, what will you do when they think you are ignoring them?

What if your prospects never hear back from you?

Being blacklisted can cause havoc at your company because of lost communications. A common way to get blacklisted is to send repetitive email messages, such as a newsletter, from your email server. Instead of risking being blacklisted, many organizations use an email newsletter service to send newsletters.

A growing problem is when attackers take over your email server to send spam. The next thing you know, you’ll be blacklisted, and your email messages won’t reach your recipients. AI technology escalates the sensitivity of spam filters that feed blacklists.

Over the past several weeks numerous customers experienced instances when their email messages do not reach customers who use Office 365. Microsoft’s spam filter is very aggressive, and it is close to impossible to get Microsoft to stop blocking your organization’s email messages after their servers disapprove of your email addresses.

Sometimes your messages are blocked because of a long signature.

Even if an attacker cannot access your servers, all they need is one user’s email address in your company. If they use the user’s account to send out spam messages, spam filters may put your entire domain on a blacklist.

The key is to protect your email accounts and your email servers. Be sure your network and cloud security is substantial. Revisit your email server’s security, as well as your users’ accounts security, regularly to avoid being blacklisted.

Please forward this to your friends, so they know about blacklists too.

The post What Will You Do if Your Customers’ Spam Filters Block Your Messages? appeared first on Foster Institute.

I decided not to click. In other words, I thanked him and walked away.

He came after me, showed me an airport security badge that looked official, and reassured me that he is the taxi I called. I asked him what his taxi number was. He made up a number 1212. I told him no, so he jumped in his car and sped away.

Soon, a taxi showed up, painted like a taxi, with the number 1515 on the windshield. That’s the taxi I expected. The driver said that kind of thing goes on frequently, costing real taxi drivers income.

So the concept of spam messages, bogus people trying to get users to click, extends beyond email. In fact, that misleading problem has likely been around ever since business started. The victims are trusting of the wolves. Spam is no different. Teach your workers, and your family, to follow the admonition: Trust, but verify.

And how did that guy get an airport security ID anyway?

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