Eat Spam, Just Don’t Look at It

Spam—not the greasy, compressed meat derivative that you may remember fondly (or not so fondly) from camping trips as a kid, but the type of spam we ALL hate that insidiously enters your computer, tempting you to open it and do its bidding. At best, it steals our time and resources. At worst, it can lead to infection of computer networks, identity theft and potential prosecution if your computer has been compromised and used for illegal purposes. Per the spamlaws.com website, there are 14.5 billion spam messages that are emailed globally each day. Nucleus Research estimates the average cost per employee each year due to spam is over $1,900 in lost productivity. Nobody with a computer is completely immune to the effects of spam.

To combat spam, there are some tips that end users can use to lessen the impact (these steps are not all-inclusive). There are many ways you can help protect yourself:

1. Despite how tempting it may be to blow off steam and respond to a spammer—don’t. Responding confirms that your email address is valid, and you will most likely end up on the radar of more spammers.

2. Don’t hit the unsubscribe button, as this can have the same effect, unless you are sure the sender is legitimate.

3. Delete emails that you know to be spam without opening them. Some messages can contain code that, when opened, sends a response to the spammer that you are there.

4. Have separate email addresses for your work, personal and ‘junk’ accounts. Use the junk account when you sign up for sites that require an email address. This will help in keeping your work and personal accounts clean.

5. Jokes and other personal type of emails tend to get forwarded a lot of times. If you feel like you must forward a message to everyone on your address list, use the BCC: (blind carbon copy) field for their addresses. This will help keep their email address from being harvested by spammers. Also remove the previous email addresses in the email.

While these are steps end users can use to help protect their email accounts, 3D Corporation can assist in the spam battle on your business networks through the use of corporate level products. With the correct hardware and software deployed and tuned for your network, the impact of spam can be greatly decreased. A good firewall such as a WatchGuard with UTM (Unified Threat Management) will assist in spam control, viral and intrusion prevention by dropping the connections before these security risks can enter your network. This translates to lower risk for your network and less overhead on your servers. For spam that has made it past the firewall, the use of Sophos Endpoint Security solutions can effectively block most spam before it arrives to the end user. It also adds another level of anti-viral, adware and spyware protection to your network.

While spam continues to be a problem, there are ways to limit your exposure and protect yourself and your network. By proactively working on these issues and implementing a good plan for protection, you will decrease the risk that comes with use of the internet.

For more information on how 3D Corporation can provide security solutions to protect your business from spam and other threats to your network, visit our website at http://www.3dcorp.us/.

References:www.spamlaws.com/spam-stats.html, www.spamlaws.com/prevent-spam.html, nucleusresearch.com