August 16, 2006

Five Ways To Lock Up E-mail

Smallbizpipeline writes - After the browser, your e-mail client is the most-used attack avenue for organized computer crooks, script kiddie hackers, and slimy spyware distributors.

In fact, once upon a time e-mail was the way to get inside your system. Melissa, a 1999 virus that spread through the inbox, and the next year's I LOVE YOU Visual Basic-based malware, kicked off the days of massive attacks carried out via e-mail.

Although the days of such big-time attacks seem to be waning, the threat from malicious e-mail hasn't: It's simply shifted to phishing campaigns, spam that plants Trojan horses, and ploys to get users to visit Web sites where they can be infected.

We've set up five steps to locking e-mail against today's changed landscape, with suggestions specific for Outlook, and in some cases, for Thunderbird as well. The former, of course, is the Microsoft client packaged with the Office suite; the latter is an up-and-coming competitor from Mozilla, the outfit that also creates Firefox. The recommendations apply to other e-mailers as well, but you're on your own when it comes to specifics.

Read the full article here.

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