Archives - Email Tips


Unsubscribe from as many email newsletters as possible

Email newsletters can be useful if they’re relevant to your interests, as they provide regular updates. If not, they can eat up a lot of space in your inbox and put you at unnecessary risk, by raising the possibility you’ll click through to a page that’s trying to capture information about you. Unsubscribe if it’s […]

Don’t open that .zip attachment

Email attachments are to some degree unavoidable in normal personal and business communications. However, it’s a good idea to minimize your exposure. Don’t open any attachments from people not in your contacts list, and ask senders if they can share the document via a cloud link instead (much safer).

Don’t follow links in email spam messages

Some spam relies on generators that try variations of email addresses at certain domains. If you click a link within an email message or reply to a certain address, you are just confirming that your email address is valid. Unwanted messages that offer an “unsubscribe” option are particularly tempting, but this is often just a […]

Weird email – when in doubt, throw it out

Clicking on links in emails is often how cybercriminals get access to personal information. If an email looks weird, even if you know the person who sent it, it’s best to delete or, if appropriate, mark it as “junk email.” You could try to contact the company directly (via phone) to be sure the email […]

Do not send personally identifiable information via standard email

There’s no undoing an email (with limited exceptions if you’re in an Microsoft Exchange environment). Plus, email security is not as strong as you might expect, especially if you aren’t using email encryption. For these reasons, never give out your sensitive data in an email.

Use cloud sharing instead of attachments when possible

Email attachments are ubiquitous, but risky – you never know what they might include. It’s usually safer to share content via links to cloud services, since you’re not actually downloading anything onto your system.