The word “phishing” might conjure up images of relaxing by a lake or stream to catch some fish, but there’s nothing laid-back about it. Phishing campaigns lure you with seemingly must-click offers – anything from get-rich-quick schemes to insistent security updates – and then steal your personal data. While phishing is among the oldest and […]

Today’s automatic filters are pretty good at keeping spam out of your inbox. However, they don’t catch everything, meaning the occasional oddball message will still slip through. Good news: You can protect your account with advanced filters configured for specific addresses and domains. Gmail, Yahoo and other major mail providers all include these features.

In May 2018, it was revealed that the commonly used encrypted email protocol PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) was vulnerable to a certain sophisticated cyber attack. This is unsurprising in a way, since PGP has been around for decades. For protection, you should uninstall any PGP plugins in emails clients like Apple Mail and Mozilla Thunderbird.

If you ever forget a password, you’ll likely reset it by having a link sent to an on-file email address. Make sure that that account is secured with two-factor authentication, doesn’t have any unusual forwarding filters set up and allows for global sign-out in case someone else accesses it.

You might think email is relatively safe, but it’s an old set of protocols with many vulnerabilities. Consider using encrypted email for full protection – messages sent through these services are completely unreadable by anyone without your key, although using it can take some getting used to.

Avoid clicking on hyperlinks in emails; type the URL directly into the address bar instead. If you choose to click on a link, ensure it is authentic before clicking on it. You can check a hyperlinked word or URL by hovering the cursor over it to reveal the full address.