IT Security Blog

Spam Trigger Words – Are There Such Things?

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If we are to believe that someone is watching our online communication, we should be careful of the subject line we choose to use in our emails. There are certain words, when detected, arouse special interests from the wrong people. If they have reason to believe that someone would have the slimmest interest in a related product or service, they may cause the floodgates of spam emails to open.  These are the so-called spam trigger words.  These are the very same words that email programs will block and effectively prevent emails from being read by intended recipients.

Some examples of these words include “as seen on”, “buy”, “clearance”, “shopper”, “order”, “order status”, “buying judgments”, and “buy direct” which are words often seen in commercial messages.  Words such as “meet singles”, and “score up with babes” appear very spammy in personal messages.  There are also words categorized as spammy in employment, financial, greetings, marketing, medical, numbers, offers, and call-to-action and words depicting a sense or urgency.  Using the word “free” is sometimes enough to send off warning bells.

Descriptive phrases like “satisfaction guaranteed” or “greatly reduced” also raise the ante of email spam filters.  This is the reason why seemingly harmless emails will end up in the spam folder.  It is best to check the spam folder once in a while since many will get trapped in there because of the words’ presumed meaning.

Many people receive a load of spam emails everyday.  They can choose to aggravate the situation by opening them and forwarding them to friends and associates or they can simply ignore them and move on to more productive online tasks.  Although no one will probably be able to stop spam emails altogether, at least not providing any more information to spammers by responding to such emails will go a long way in not further clogging emails of email contacts.

Spam emails are so easy to create and sending them to thousands of recipients will cost the sender nothing.  Many gain something by getting a response or even closing a sale  from the use of such spam email.  It is no wonder then that this practice is not about to stop anytime soon.

There are many eyes watching our online transactions.  Sometimes, they only need to see a word to see you as a probable client for their offering. Do yourself a favor and stay away from these trigger words in your communication.

Teresa is a researcher-writer who covers a wide range of topics in search of useful information.

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The Path Traveled by Emails

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To say that an email is generally insecure is clearly an understatement because of the number of proven threats and invasive practices that have transpired mainly due to violation of its original intent.  Email messages have their intended recipients and when some other party gets to eavesdrop, certain risks arise.  These include identity theft, invasion of privacy, modification of messages, false messages, repudiation, replay of messages, and unprotected back-ups.

An email is sent through the “Simple Mail Transport Protocol” or SMTP.  It uses the “Hyper Text Transfer Protocol” or HTTP language to send a message through the SMTP server in order to reach the recipient.  When the recipient’s actual SMTP server cannot be contacted, the sender’s server will try to contact back-up servers when available.  It will try to contact the intended recipient’s server for a number of days before it finally gives up.  The message becomes available for reading once it is received by the recipient’s server.  The amount of time wherein an email message travels from the sender to the recipient varies depending on the servers’ traffic load.

The travel time of an email is the most critical phase of the process in terms of exposure to risks.  Potential risks can be lessened through the use of encryption.  One way is through symmetric encryption wherein the sender and recipient share a secret key.  Plain text is converted into cyphertext which would appear meaningless to anyone who does not have the secret key.  The message needs to be decrypted before it is understood.  Asymmetric encryption requires the use of a private and public key.  The private key is expected to be kept secret by its holder for the asymmetric encryption to retain its security.  Most email messages are made more secure through the Secure Socket Layer (SSL).

Protecting Online Anonymity

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Computer users lose their privacy once their online presence and activities are no longer anonymous.  Losing anonymity means that someone or a group of people are able to track online behavior.  This includes knowing the user’s location or browsing habits.

Most people are not aware that their online activities are under surveillance.  It should be noted that Internet Service Providers  possess a full record of user activities, not to mention that search engines and websites likewise record all user activities in spite of claims that all data garnered are “anonymized” or has not been provided identifiable information.  There are providers and sites that purposely collect personal information to sell to the highest bidder. 

So how do we go about protecting our online anonymity?  Users can consider using a software implementation that uses a network of servers that can effectively conceal usage and location.  This highlights the layered nature of encryption wherein a data is encrypted and re-encrypted many times over on its way to its final destination.  The process prevents undesirable elements from unscrambling and understanding the message sent.  There are several tools available in the market today including Proxy.org, JonDonym, Ultra Surf, Tor, Proxomitron, and the Ultra VPN.

Another way to protect online anonymity is to install a good software firewall. Computer users can also stick to visiting highly reliable big sites such as Disney which are committed to upholding the highest standards.  Upholding the highest standards simply means doing right with whatever information they inadvertently or purposely obtain from the customers.   There is also an option to maintain an alias email address to enable users to receive messages without revealing the true email address.

 

IT Security Policy for Employees

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Locked Out by Truthout.org

Information technology or IT continues to serve the needs of a business from start to the processes of change that it is required to go through as it expands.  It is a necessary occurrence for increased IT security to be needed as businesses grow.  Companies can protect themselves better by laying out the fundamentals of IT security through policies.

Every company operates on its own level of security in the aspect of technology use so it would be impossible to have complete uniformity between company policies.  The most basic components however are essentially the same.  Such components deal with maintaining data security discipline among employees and providing for the official use of the business equipments provided. 

Electronic mail or simply email is deemed an official form of communication between the company and the customers thus it is important that those who are sending it are authorized to do so.  Companies generally have the right to review online communication of employees done through company facilities which give them the chance to intercept and prevent communication which are contrary to company policy or puts the company at risk or danger.  This right however has to be legally backed up by carefully worded terms and conditions.  Most companies also include automatic disclaimer in email contents. 

Employees need to know what constitutes transgression of company security if they are to be expected to act accordingly.  There is also a need for policies to undergo periodic checking and evaluation to ensure that they are current to existing conditions and technologies.  Employers must have access to sanctioning violators of IT security policies so that employees fully understand the consequences of their actions.  Clear-cut written words that have sound legal basis provides the foundation of every IT security policy.

More E-mail Security Tips

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I was only able to fit in two tips in the previous post but no worries, here are more things for you to look at.

To subscribe or unsubscribe? What to do?
You know those e-mail messages informing you of one thing or another and then at the bottom it says “To unsubscribe to this service, click on this link…” or something like that? Well, many are legit but here’s the thing – this tactic is also being used to get you to click on the link and gather information from you. What you should do, instead of immediately unsubscribing, is to first double check if you really have subscribed to that service. Otherwise, you just might find more spam mails in your Inbox. If you’re unsure, just mark the address as spam so that it can be filtered in the future.

Guard “important” e-mail addresses
Some people guard their phone numbers zealously. They would only give their numbers to people they know very well and people who they are ok with contacting them. How come, when it comes to e-mail, it seems that people are less guarded? It shouldn’t be the case. You don’t know who will end up knowing your e-mail address and start sending you stuff that you don’t need or worse, malware. If I were you, I’d set up another web e-mail account that is separate from your main e-mail account.

Remember: There is no such thing as absolute privacy
Whatever you code into your computer and send through e-mail is never ever really totally private. Just bear this in mind when writing anything. It will keep you safe.