Archives - Malicious Emails


Email attachments and links: proceed with caution

Ever receive an email with an attachment or link that seems too good to be true? It might be. Malicious actors often use emails to spread malware, the digital boogeyman that can infect your device. Just like you wouldn’t open a random package on your doorstep, don’t click on suspicious links or open unknown attachments, […]

Disable auto downloading of graphics in HTML email

Countless spammers send HTML mail with a linked graphic file that is then used to track who reads the mail message. When your mail client downloads the graphic from their web server, the spammers know you’ve opened the message. Disabling HTML mail completely and viewing messages in plain text can also avoid this issue.

Use email filters to wrangle risky messages

Most major consumer email services offer filtering options, most times you can choose what happens to any message coming from a specific sender and/or contains a specific subject line or particular words. For example, you can immediately archive any email with “free” or “unsubscribe” in its body. This can help you clear out high risk […]

Lookout for malicious email

A malicious email can look just like it comes from a financial institution, an e-commerce site, a government agency or any other service or business. It often urges you to act quickly, because your account has been compromised, your order cannot be fulfilled or there is another urgent matter to address. If you are unsure […]

Turn off HTML rendering in your email client

Many email security risks, including the recent PGP hack, stem from the use of HTML and CSS within content-rich emails. Depending on your email client, you may be able to disable HTML, which simplifies the email reading experience and mitigates the risks from some attacks reliant on this vector.