How to get rid of junk mail

Who has never received spam in their email? It is inevitable, we cannot avoid being bombarded with emails that we do not want, but perhaps, we can find a way to automatically detect and eliminate them without the risk of losing communications that are really important. Shall we get to work?

Spending some time without checking your email, accessing it, and finding ourselves with too many emails that do not interest us is something that almost everyone has ever experienced. Having a personal email to receive important or work issues and finding ourselves with junk emails every day is also quite frequent. Sometimes, we receive spam daily, which wastes our time and compromises our security.

The mailbox can be quite large, so if you work locally, you may have a problem of space and speed of response from the computer. The performance of the program in charge of managing your e-mail is exceeded by a large number of emails that are useless but are stored. If we have to handle these files with so much volume, it is to be expected that the performance will be affected and reduced, so if you have to search for important emails among a large number of gigs, it is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Probably we receive emails from websites that we don't even remember having ever visited, or that maybe we visited once and gave our email. There are also companies that access customer databases and send them communications, news, discounts, and many emails that the customer will not even open. Usually, it is just advertising, but there are also malicious emails.

The new data protection law tries to prevent the client by default from being saturated with emails that they do not want, and that is why now the law requires that the client give their express consent to receive those emails, to subscribe to newsletters, or to receive important news, discounts, promotions, and everything that the web or company may think that the client wants to receive. Even so, today there are companies that have not adapted to this law and continue to send unsolicited emails with advertising and other matters.

In addition to companies, there are hackers who try to access private and company computers through an email that will serve to hack that user and access to recover valuable information. Techniques and methods such as phishing, Trojans, worms… usually infect users starting with a simple email that may be attractive. You have surely heard of WannaCry, one of the most well-known ransomware attacks that not so long ago was talked about in the news for its great malicious effect and its dangerousness.

Imagine if it is an employee of a large company or an individual who develops his/her professional work on that computer. Everything can be exposed to a person with bad intentions who can:

1. Block us from accessing our system and data in exchange for a reward. Yes, it sounds terrible, and it is. They can access your photos, contacts, memories, documents, and online banking pins, online storage, access to websites, users, passwords… The list is long.
2. They can hide and retrieve confidential information that they will later use however they want. You do not notice it, but they know the codes of the company, the bank user, your credit data, compromising data, confidential information that only you should have and that you have never given to anyone.

Both scenarios pose a problem, and it is advisable to be cautious so that, if the day comes and it happens to us, at least the damage is the least possible.

If you detect a spam email, do not delete it. First, mark it as spam, so that your email manager can classify it and detect similar ones from there. It will save you a lot of time and reduce the risk of being infected by one of them or of being tempted to open it. Establishing automatic rules to consider certain senders as spam and that they are sent to a specific folder is one of the most recommended options, since normally the spam folder is emptied every so often (the user can configure it, although it is usually 30 days).

Many mailboxes allow you to mark certain emails as spam and always treat emails from that sender as such, so that they are automatically sent to the trash. Most email managers offer built-in options to classify these types of messages.

Do not open the attachments or executables contained in the email if you are not sure about the authenticity of the data in that message. And resist the urge to click on that suspicious link. Ignore the chains of email, as these loops will make our email reach many more people and we will increase the spam received, while we compromise our own cybersecurity.

Never respond to spam, and if you are ever unsure of the authenticity of the sender and decide to respond, never give any personal information or any confidential information. If you don't know the origin of the email... why reply?

Unsubscribe from communications or cancel subscriptions. If you receive an email from a website and you don't want to receive more, you can go to the bottom of the email where you will probably find a link to unsubscribe and stop receiving notifications, newsletters, advertising, and any other communication from that website. Do not give your email or information on any website without being sure what it is. In the same way that you do not tell people where you live, the salary you earn, or your date of birth, do not go surfing the net giving your email to anyone who asks you. This is not a secret, but you simply have to be selective when giving certain information, otherwise, it is likely that the forms or individuals who request it do so only for advertising purposes, so spam is almost guaranteed.

Also, do not give your email in any post or forum in which you participate, in the same way that you would not give your phone number or bank account details. Be sensible.

Create a free email account only to receive information not related to anything personal or professional. In this way, you can separate your personal life from your professional life, and from your advertising and marketing life!

Of all the emails that are received, it turns out that, one day, you see one that is more attractive to you than the others, where a prize, a discount, or information that seems important to you is offered. That day, you open that email and click on the link. Not good! It turns out that this email was not authentic and now your data is in the hands of a hacker. What do we do if we don't have a backup system?

The problem of someone receiving one of these emails and someone accessing it is that, nowadays, more and more information is stored in the cloud, so an attack can expose us, not only because of the information that is in the infected computer, tablet, or mobile, but it leaves free access to everything that is stored in the cloud.

As an individual, it is a drama and a problem that everything is available to someone who does not have good intentions. As a business, it is even more problematic because it can even lead to the closure or failure of that business, the loss of customers and bank account information, strategies, and much more.

If you had a backup of all your files, system, photos, folders, and work matters, then at least you will not have lost any information. It is very important to periodically make backups of everything important and to encrypt everything that may be confidential or very private. In the event of a disaster, at least they won't be able to see certain information and we can get all of our belongings back.

With Acronis Backup, you can always have a backup made in the right place, away from all hackers. Backups can be scheduled so that they do not interrupt the daily activity of the individual or the company. Professional backups that allow you to store the backup in the cloud, with all the guarantees, especially when restoring the data and leaving the system as it was.

Remember, common sense is the best way to avoid discomfort. Do not give your email to anyone, do not open spam or click on links that you do not know where they lead and, of course, do not reply to spam emails. If you select who you give your email to and check what you receive on a daily basis, you will almost certainly have a mailbox that you can manage and keep clean of garbage and hackers. Start now!