Email

Why Does My Email Heart Feel So Bad?

July 26, 2015 — Leave a comment

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The busy little bees in Symantec have some good news for all of us. It turns out that the number of spam has reached its critical minimal point in the last ten years. This can mean only one thing. The web and email service providers are doing their homework properly.

Or, we can put it in this way. One in two emails is a spam. According to Symantec this is great. Actually, this is the best thing, which happened in this field, during the last cyber decade. Are we supposed to be happy or relieved about it? Symantec has a nice reminder.

Not so long ago, three out of four emails you are supposed to get were with a spam purpose. Yes, this is a great change. No, we are not supposed to be thrilled about it. Is there something we can do to decrease spams to a harmless level of a statistical error?

If you are happy with the current situation, they you are not very likely to change it. Right? This is a moral we strongly recommend for this story. Otherwise, the spam-masters can say, great news, business will be as usual, for us.

123456

March 18, 2015 — Leave a comment

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There are almost 100,000 Gmail accounts, which have or use the identical password: 123456. Can you believe it? What is wrong with all these people? We should not forget the reckless guys, who just cannot get enough of the timeless classic: password. Some guys were a little bit smarter. How exactly?

They have included some modifications. How about “p@ssword” or “passw0rd”, for a change? We just cannot get enough of these hilarious security flaws. What needs to happen to make us change our harmful habits? We keep complaining about the dangerous cyber world we live in, don’t we?

On the other side, we fail to include even the most basic security measures. And, we still have the nerve to hope for the best. This is a perfect disaster scenario for any field in life, not only the cyberspace. You can rest assured that hackers all over the world are praying for more of these “passwords”.

So, what is the moral of our cozy disturbing story? The epic journey to the very next level of your magical cyber security begins right now with the simplest step you can possibly imagine or do? How hard could it possibly be? Which reminds us to change the password for our blog. We have to go.

Gmail Attachments With A New Address

November 23, 2014 — Leave a comment

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From now on, you can find all of your Gmail attachments on your Google Drive account. So, what is up with this one? We are a little bit confused. This is supposed to be a good or a bad news for us? It comes without saying that can be a nice and cozy feature for Gmail users. We have to give them a credit for that.

On the other side, we cannot help ourselves noticing an obvious attempt of Google to push up a little bit the use of its cloud services. Now, let us examine what is very likely to happen with our cyber security. This is not such a smart thing to do. It is just like you put all of your data eggs in one gasket.

This can potentially allow easier access for the hackers. All they have to do is to get your Google Drive account. No need to mess up or waste time with the Gmail account in the first place. For the sake of all of us, we sure hope that Google knows what he is doing with this one. Otherwise, we are in serious trouble.

It comes without saying that our attachments are very often the most vulnerable and important parts of our emails. Sure thing, we need to do something that will ease our use and downloading process. However, we should not compromise our security with this new option. Right? Otherwise, what is the use?

Bello: An Unpleasant Hello

October 15, 2014 — Leave a comment

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One of the most prestigious universities in the world has just been hacked. The IT department of University College London has announced or better to say admitted that almost 25,000 students and staff member emails got spammed and compromised. That is not a lesson you want to teach your students.

All the troubles started with a simple Bello in the spam emails. How come none of the youngest and brightest students could not see it coming? Well, you do not expect a spam email from the University’s President or the top managers, do you? So, what happened to the top IT security standards?

When you are on the top, you are supposed to be on the top of many things, including the cyber security, as well. These types of institutions are all about the prestige. Why risk it all for an appropriate software solution, which could have prevented it in the very first place? That was a simple question.

You do not have to be a rocket scientist to ensure the proper cyber protection. All you need to do is to do some thinking on time, and to include some preventive measures. There is no point crying your academic tears over the spilled cyber milk. You need to make sure it does not happen again. Right?

Spamistics

September 22, 2014 — Leave a comment

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Can a spam email eventually prevail? Well, that is entirely up to us. Let us see what our fellow users in the USA, UK, France and Germany are doing about it. First, let us deal with numbers, shall we? On the other hand, be prepared to accept an additional trouble in this story – the malicious URLs.

Yes, busy little IT bees the spam trouble strongly appreciates the company of the malware related URLs. If you are living in the UK and you get spammed, the chances are five to one against you that your spam will get you infected with malicious URLs compared with your friends in France or Germany.

The funny thing about this story, though, is that bad URLs do not go necessarily with bad emails. Therefore, in the UK the chances are bigger that you will get both spams and malware URLs. Nevertheless, in France and Germany you will get less spam in the first place compared to the UK situation.

What is happening with the USA in this spam story? Well, they are somewhere in between the UK and Germany/France statistical situation. While using your email in the USA you will get a little bit of both. So, where is the country where you can be spam and malicious URLs free? Any ideas?

E-Mail + E-Guilt = Real Punishment

August 3, 2014 — Leave a comment

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t is not too late, for all of you who are reading this post to think twice before write or send an email in the future. Unfortunately, all we needed was one federal judge to say emails are the legitimate evidence target. The police can treat them in the same way as they are already doing with our hard drives.

Just imagine a situation where someone knocks at your door informing you that there is a warrant, which allows him to keep and examine your emails. All what you have written or received in your inbox can be used against you as the legitimate evidence at the court of law. How do you feel about this one?

Without any exaggeration we can say that we are completely surrounded. First, our smartphones, and now emails. The federal government obviously has an intention to turn all elements associated with our privacy into bulletproof evidences. What is next? Do you dare to guess?

What are we supposed to do? To buy old typing machines just like Germans are doing after the recent spying controversy? To use pigeons messengers? Seriously? When we will have a courage to say enough is enough? Maybe, they will use these posts as the evidence in the near future? Who knows?