FREE ANTI SPAM SOFTWARE is Desktop One. Its effective and simple to use. Multiple accounts requires the paid-for version.
FREE ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE is Microsoft Security Essentials. Great basic Anti-Virus Package and Firewall. You MUST update this software daily .
HACKERS
It is VERY important to make sure your computer and therefore your business is protected from Hackers, Spam and Viruses. Make no mistake if your email password is the name of your football team or a combination of your name and a date of birth – you WILL get hacked and if you use the latter you have also given away your date of birth.
If you are setting up WordPress DONT use the word ADMIN as the user. Simply use another name and set the role or privilege to admin. This will stop 99 per cent of WP Hacks.
DATE OF BIRTH
Facebook, Social Media and Insurance Comparison sites: Sites that ask for your date of birth (DOB) need to be considered carefully. On the one hand its lovely on Facebook that everyone says Happy Birthday once a year, on the other hand its not so lovely that you are giving away KEY DATA in the form of your DOB to hackers and criminals. Perhaps one should have TWO birthdays like the Queen .. one for Social Media and another (real one) for legal documents.
You may wish to note that Insurance companies however would frown on FAKE dates of birth and in fact consider it FRAUD. So if you use a fake DOB on an Insurance comparison website, ultimately your insurance would be void if you buy from this website because you are providing your insurer with false information – you can also expect a call from the police. So be careful about who you give information to and to what purposes these websites use your “Mother’s Maiden Name” or “Favourite Pet”.
SPAM
If you send out lots of advertising emails about your product or service to people you don’t know – its spam. It is an offence and it is frowned upon by internet providers. If you get caught you will be blacklisted and all you email spam or otherwise will be rejected by anyone using anti-spam software.
DO NOT purchase a spreadsheet of all the business email addresses of Managers and Directors in the UK.
If you do need to send out email in bulk
a) use a disposable email address set up specifically for the purpose from a large company that offers free email addresses.
b) use a paid service like Aweber or Mailchimp
You getting Spam.
If you sign up for a competition of a special deal or money off coupon – its NOT a good idea to use you real email address. The people running these competitions are probably harvesting email addresses along with your address (for the prize delivery) and your name. Try to use a disposable one. Mailinator does this very well.
Monitor the Spammers
Some people use a unique email address for EVERY sign-up. That way when the spam starts flowing you know EXACTLY who started it and who they sold your data on to. So you might have product-tester99@hotmail.com when signing up for Product-Tester-Guys.com The you know when the spam starts flowing into this account it was Product-Tester-Guys that did it to you.
Calco Pages about Spam
VIRUSES – Don’t click on a link in an email!
Typically .. the way these things work is that the virus sends out emails when no one is looking to around 50 people in the host address book.
The email will be from a well know company like a BANK or a SHIPPING COMPANY and will request you click the link to “SIGN IN” If you sign in not only do you get infected with the virus; it will scan your hard drive for passwords and store your “log-in” credentials to whatever Bank or Shipping Service you clicked.
The virus then sends out 50 more emails of a similar form when no one is looking to people in your ADDRESS BOOK.
These people in turn open the emails (unless they are security aware and know about such things) and become infected. Sometimes it can take three months for the virus to activate, thus making the source of the infection difficult.
Normally you would NEVER open an attachment in an email you
- Don’t expect i.e. from the tax man, amazon, UPS or BT etc.
- Open an email from obvious fraudsters or prize offers
- Click on ANY link within ANY email unless you just registered for something or its from an expected source.
If you DO need to click on a link .. DON’T!
Stop and think about how best to react. Usually you would go to Amazon or BT or whatever and log in manually using a browser that you started yourself and NOT from a link in an email. You would then navigate to the required part of the website and perform any actions requested by the company.
Generally large companies (Amazon, Ebay etc) will have an email address called abuse@ then the name of the company to which you can send emails asking if something is genuine.
However the fraud gangs are clever and getting cleverer. Just be vigilant.