Tiscali: Email Security

Spam is the online version of junk mail and generally tries to sell you something in which you have no interest. It is annoying and intrusive and clogs up your inbox. Check out our golden rules below of what to do when dealing with spam.

However, are you also aware that when you send email it can be read in transit by anyone with the means to snoop? Email is like a postcrad, don't let just anyone read it. Find out how encryption can help you safeguard your email.

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How email encryption can safeguard your email

Email encryption, spam filters and email anti-virus

Unwanted email, sometimes known as junk or spam email, is unsolicited email advertising. Examples of unwanted email:

Adverts for porn or gambling sites.

Work from home schemes.

Online pharmacies.

Advertising 'Herbal Viagra' and similarly improbable products.

Selling implausibly cheap (pirated) software.

A substantial majority of the email that goes over the internet every day is unwanted junk mail.

Spammers collect addresses in many different ways, including:

Guessing. Spammers use automated software to generate addresses.

Harvesting from websites. If an email address is embedded in a webpage, spammers can use spiders (similar to those used by search engines) to find them.

Online registration. If someone gives their email address to a dodgy website or one with a lax privacy policy, the site owner can sell the addresses to spammers.

From other spammers. It's possible to buy lists of email addresses by the million online.

So-called spam email cancellation services. These bogus services offer to block unwanted email but really collect addresses.

It wastes bandwidth.

Filtering it manually is very time-consuming.

Unwanted email often contains offensive images.

It propagates online fraud, such as phishing.

Often contains viruses.

Filtering email manually is time-consuming but here are some tell-tale signs you can use to do so if you only get a limited amount.

From someone you don't know.

Contains weird misspellings (e.g. 'p0rn' with a zero), designed to counter spam filters.

Offers something for sale.

The subject line and contents don't match.

Contains a beguiling or urgent call to action ('Buy now to get 50% off').

If you get more than a handful of unwanted emails a day, we recommend you use a mail filter to get rid of the rubbish automatically.

We've prepared a checklist of do's and dont's to help you tackle most spam issues. Read on to find out how you can guard against spam and email snoopers.