I've written a few times before about steps you can take to protect yourself online, especially in my top 10 tips for making your computer more secure. One of the biggest problems is that email (which is one of the most popular methods of digital communication) is also one of the least secure methods. Despite that, it's still my favorite form of communication, and as long as it's used wisely, it can make you super efficient. In this article, I'll quickly go over a few ways to keep yourself safe online, and in particular to avoid falling victim to the king of email scams, phishing.
(Photo credit: Ansel Edwards Photography via Comp fight cc)Listen to this blog post: Secure yourself with HTTPS Facebook HTTPS There are several ways to make your email more secure. First, you need to make sure you're connecting to employee data your mail server securely using HTTPS. You may have seen the "golden padlock" when logging into certain sites (especially in the case of internet banking). HTTPS encrypts Internet traffic between you and the website you are browsing. SSL certificates are only granted to websites offering this HTTPS connection by certificate authorities who perform background checks on the website before issuing one.
There are technically different levels of certificate for which different levels of background checks are required. The validated domain is only validated against the domain name itself and offers the least protection to the end user. An organization certificate requires checking the background of the company or organization itself. Finally, the top-level certificate is an Extended Validation Certificate, which gives the familiar green bar you see on online banking sites. Most email providers such as Gmail offer SSL, and if yours doesn't, it should! Even Yahoo! Mail, widely criticized for not having SSL, has just enabled it as an option.