Whilst many spam message simply contain unwanted advertising, others harbour more serious dangers such as phishing, malware or identity theft risks.
Typical spam messages can be subdivided into three groups: Harmless advertising, intrusive e-mails trying to collect real addresses and dangerous messages, containing malicious links or annexes. This becomes particularly tricky if spam is blended in with phishing – for instance with e-mails purportedly sent by banks or courier services and asking recipients to enter sensitive information.
Although modern mail providers, virus scanners and e-mail programs such as Outlook or Thunderbird manage to screen out a lot of spam already, part of it still ends up in your inbox. It is therefore important to be able to recognise suspicious messages yourself. Conspicuous subject lines, unclear language, demands for urgent action and unusual sender addresses are some frequent warning signs. Be particularly wary of links: Instead of clicking immediately, you should check first where a link will actually lead – for instance by hovering your cursor over it when using a PC/laptop, or by a long tap on a smartphone or tablet.
If you would like to improve your e-mail security, you can specifically mark spam messages in your e-mail as such so that it can recognise them as spam in the future automatically. Chargeable e-mail providers or additional protective functions in antivirus software often provide better protection than free services, too. For account or newsletter registrations which are less important, it is recommended you use temporary e-mail addresses, for instance using the Trash-Mail app, functions such as “hide e-mail address” with Apple or “Shielded E-Mail” with Google.
Further information can be found in our article on “Protection against SPAM” or our 5 steps for your digital security.
