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Your technology questions answered

Posted by: 3AW Radio | 27 November, 2009 - 2:57 PM
Email security

3AW.com.au technology blogger, Risto Sampola,gives you some very user-friendly advice each week. Ask him a question in this blog and he will answer it.

For more about Risto Sampola and how he can help you - click here

SPAM EMAIL: To lodge an official complaint or report a supected spam email please visit the ACMA Website.

Click here to redirected to the ACMA website.

NOVEMBER 27:It would be difficult to imagine the world without email – it has become close to essential. You can use it conduct business and keep in touch with friends, subscribe to newsletters and invite friends to Facebook. As with most things in life, it’s not all milk and honey though.

Anyone who has ever received spam (it guess that’s everybody) can attest to the sheer annoyance it brings. As if that wasn’t enough, some spam is designed to direct you to a malicious website, where the opportunity lies to catch viruses, malware, spyware and phising. Results can vary from an infected computer, probably to use it as a part of a botnet, to complete ID theft and bank account hoovering.

Naturally there are defences in place, so with appropriately installed and configured software the defences are tight. A good pinch of commons sense also goes a long way.

When it comes to email security it is first of all worth nothing that unless your emails are encrypted they are easily intercepted and read, so never send sensitive data, such as credit card numbers, via email. If encryption is used then the content of the email is effectively jumbled up into illegible content and only the recipient can decrypt it with a decryption key.

The process is usually automated, but in all fairness this technology is not widely used, so bear in mind that an email could almost be likened to a postcard, whereby every point it travels through could easily read its contents. Also bear in mind that when you send an email it never goes direct from your computer to the recipient’s computer. Instead it will travel through a great number of connections and each connections poses a security risk of some kind.

Spam is of course a pain in the backside as it fills up your inbox with umpteen Viagra ads or other scams, such as, "Congratulations, you've won a lottery you never even entered." – yeah right, pull the other one! So-called 'phishing' scams involve you getting, for example, an email appearing to be from your bank asking you to confirm your username and password. There will often be a link to a website, which appears to be similar to your bank's log-in screen, because the hackers basically copied its layout.

If you then proceed to enter your log-in details, hey presto, the hackers have your details and while you're still staring at your screen, they're siphoning your account. NEVER open any emails that appear to be from your bank as no legitimate bank would ever ask you to confirm any log in details via email – they already have your details, so there would be no point in them asking for it again. If a bank wishes to communicate with you it's usually via a phone call, letter or a message in you netbanking account. There are literally billions of spam emails sent every day (often from these 'zombie computers'), making up around 90% of all emails in the world.

The most comprehensive defence against all this ‘cyber junk’ is a good protection software package – and then make sure you keep its updates, which are carried out daily, hourly or even real-time, turned on at all times. Windows Mail and Outlook, for example, have spam-filters, but I can’t say they’re all that great. If you have a professional anti-spam engine installed it must also have daily or instant updates enabled as one of the most efficient anti-spam components is advance warning, when a large spam dump is detected somewhere in the world.

The spam-spewing website’s IP address (every website has one) is sent to email recipients and mail from that address will be blocked automatically. Web-based email accounts, such as Hotmail and Gmail have built-in anti-spam (and anti-virus), which on the whole is pretty good. None can claim to be 100% accurate, so keep an eye in your ‘Junk’ folder as some genuine mails may well wind up there. Similarly, if spam does get into your inbox, mark the sender as spam, so that IP address gets manually blocked against future attempts to send you more spam.

So, install some protection software, keep it up to date, be wary of random ‘great offers’ and always check the security certificate of any website where personal or financial information is traded. This is done by clicking on the ‘gold lock’ icon in your web browser. Then you can make the most of email with very little to worry about.

Hope this helps, leave your question below.

Blog comments Your Say

  • Hi laptop speicher,

    Yes, true to say sometimes spam filters get it wrong and quarantine a genuine email. However, proceed with caution - especially if clicking on links as this is an all too common scam to direct the recipient to a website with malware.

    Risto Sampola Thursday 7 January, 2010 - 5:33 PM

  • Every now and then one has to check the junk or the spam folder of his email account. There may be few useful links or useful mails waiting for you.

    laptop speicher Monday 28 December, 2009 - 3:07 PM

  • Hi,
    I heard someone talking about an iPhone app that allowed pictures taken in national parks to have digital affects added. I think it was on Monday afternoon. Can you tell me what the app was?

    rand Wednesday 16 December, 2009 - 9:57 PM

  • Hi Greg,

    The problem with spam is that much of it comes from countries where laws are non-existant or simply not enforced. When it comes to 'botnets' (a group of hijacked home computers sending out spam without the owner even knowing about it), these programs spread in the wild and it can be difficult to ever trace the original source. They spread from country to country too, so if and Australian gets spam from another Australian's botnet computer, by a virus written by a Russian, for an American client, registered in the Bahamas... Who do you take to court, in what country, under what laws, who will prosecute? These cases can be ridiculously complex, but suffice to say, in most civilised nations, spam is a crime - and as such prison is definitely an option. As to who actually gets even as far as the inside of a court room is another story...

    Risto Sampola Wednesday 2 December, 2009 - 9:23 AM

  • Hi Ray,

    This would most likely imply that you do not have a program installed, which is able to open the attachment. If this is the case then find out the file type of the attachment - usually denoted by the .xxx file extension in the name. For example .doc is for Word documents. Then find a program capable of opening this type of file. Having said that, if you do have a relevant program installed already then it might be corrupted - unistallation, followed by reinstallation should cure that. Let me know if this works.

    Cheers, Risto

    Risto Sampola Wednesday 2 December, 2009 - 9:10 AM

  • My computer Vista will not open some attachments. Says windows does not recognise this attachment. I only get it occasionally.I have seen ways they say to fix it but a/ I do not understand b/ Iam not smart enough to follow what is said !!
    Ray

    Ray Jacobs Friday 27 November, 2009 - 4:37 PM

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