In my previous article, I have talked about some of the email security procedures that you have to consider when you need to secure your email from attacks. In this article, I want to delve into some of the practical ways of securing your email accounts, Follow me as we are going to be looking at that together in this article,
Here are some of the steps…
#1 Creating Strong Passwords
I have talked about some of the reasons why you need to create strong passwords in my previous articles. You need strong passwords because they are very difficult to crack or guess. Just like I said in one of my articles that there is no password that cannot be cracked but when you are using a strong password, it will take a while before your account can be hacked.
A strong password can be created by using combinations of numbers (0-9), letters in upper and lower case (a-z, A-Z) and special characters (!@#$%%^). You have to make sure that you create a strong password and make sure that you do not share it or write it anywhere.
#2 Alternate Email Address
An alternate email address is the additional email address required to sign up for most of the free email services such as Gmail and Yahoo as well. This is used by the service provider to identify the email creator’s identity.
An alternate email address is also used for password recovery in case you forgot the password that you used when you created the account.
#3 Remember Me
Most of the popular email clients have the keep me signed in or remember me option. Checking this option will allow the email client to fetch the email inbox of the user without him/her having to fill in the login details again. This might also allow other users on the same device to have access to your email.
Users should check that this option is not selected when accessing email addresses from a personal computer.
#4 Using HTTPS
Also, webmails such as Gmail, Yahoo mail, Hotmail, and AOL Mail among others have an option of choosing the communication protocol for browser connection. You need to change the browser connection settings to receive email using HTTPS. (HTTP Secured).
#5 Last Account Activity
You need to always check the last email account activity if the feature is available with the email service, Last account activity includes information such as access type (browser, mobile, POP3 among others), location (IP Address), and date/time of account activities.
To check account activity in Gmail, scroll to the bottom, scroll to the bottom of the page and then click Details.
#6 Scanning email attachment
You have to be cautious when you are opening any email attachments. You need to save all the email attachments and scan them properly for malware using an anti-virus before opening an email attachment,
You need to enable the anti-virus to automatically scan all the emails and downloads.
#7 Turn Off Preview Feature
Also, email clients have the option to show a preview of the email. You need to turn off this feature in the email clients. Turning on this feature may execute script code without you explicitly opening the message.
To turn off the preview feature in Microsoft Outlook, Go to:
- Go to the View menu and select Reading Page
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- Click the Off Option.
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- To Turn Off the preview feature in Mozilla Thunderbird
- Go to the View Menu and select Layout
- Uncheck the option Message Pane
#8 Email Filtering
Email filtering is the process of organizing emails according to specified criteria. They are generally used to identify and categorize spam emails. Therefore, in order to avoid unwanted email in Microsoft Outlook, go to Delete Group on the Home Tab, click Junk and Junk Email Options, and On the Blocked Sender tab, Click Add. Enter the email address or Domain name and click OK.
#9 Digitally Sign Your Emails
Digital Signatures are used to authenticate the sender of a message or the signer of a document. They can also be used to ensure that the original content of the message is not changed. Also, you need to note that the user requires an email certificate to digitally sign emails. You can always obtain Digital signatures from certification authorities such as Verisign, Comodo, Thwate among others.
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