An email account seems almost indispensable for professionally functioning in the modern world, but the convenience offered by email access comes with a proportional amount of risks. The risks of using email regularly are almost all related to how thoroughly secure your passwords and log-in information are. Thankfully, defending yourself from email infiltration is a relatively uncomplicated manner. Regardless of skill level, everyone is perfectly capable of keeping their email account virus-proof. The following suggestions are just a few of the best and simplest ways to keep your email safe from infection.
Stick to reputable email providers
There are several different email providers that anyone can freely register an account within a matter of minutes, unfortunately, they are not all created equal. While some email providers give the user adequate buffers of defense against malicious third parties, others are completely useless when it comes to keeping your personal information defended from brand new threats.
When it comes to email providers that you can actually trust to keep your information guarded against some of the most commonly encountered email infection tactics, Gmail and Outlook are relatively dependable. Gmail and Outlook not only have a structurally stable interface, but they are also regularly updated with new security measures to keep up with evolving viral infection patterns.
Create secure passwords
Choosing a reliable email provider is the first step towards ensuring that your privacy doesn’t get compromised, but it can’t be the last step you take. Take a step further in making sure that your privacy remains adequately protected against the most common threats. Ensure that your password is secure enough to be safe from brute force hacking.
Brute force hacking is simply when a hacker is able to eventually achieve access to your account by figuring out the password through trial and error. This can be done either manually or through specially designed software. To make it difficult for your password to be discovered through trial and error, make liberal use of letters both in uppercase and lowercase. Use special case characters and numbers alongside the mixed case letters. It will be extremely unlikely that any hackers will dedicate the time to figuring out the exact configuration of your password.
2-factor authentication
After you’ve chosen a reliable email provider and created the most secure password that you can, the next step is to activate 2-factor authentication. Using 2-factor authentication introduces an additional element of identity verification into gaining access to your account. While it may take a little longer for you to sign in, those extra seconds are more than worthwhile for the safety provided. Your email account is all the more secure if the login process requires both a password and a specific security question.
A hacker’s ability to gain access to email accounts is entirely based on the lack of time invested into taking the most basic measures for data security. As long as you keep your password secure, enable extra authentication layers, and stick with a reputable email provider, you’ll be much safer than any other users who lack the patience to take basic precautions.