Top 10 Best Preventive Methods to Secure Email Accounts from Email Hackers

[The AchieVer]

Top 10 Best Preventive Methods to Secure Email Accounts from Email Hackers

 

Secure Email Accounts is one of the most important concerns in the digital world since the email account is one of the most targetted sources for cyber attacks .

 

The Email accounts are the tempting targets for hackers, they find every possible way to infiltrate your email accounts as they are the unique identifiers for your online account logins.

 

If hackers gained access to your email account then they can identify the services associated with your accounts and they gain access to the associated accounts by requesting password resets.

 

Today Email accounts emerged as a major security threat for business and home computers. Attackers follow a variety of sophisticated methods to deliver malware attacks that cause a serious risk.

 

A well crafted and personalized Email message is the most common way to deliver the ransomware and various exploits, according to recent reports more than 66% of malware delivered through email attachments and around 59% of phishing emails deliver ransomware that encrypts user computer.

 

By having a strong password does not always protect you from cyber attacks. You should have some Enterprise Grade Email Security to protect your Email accounts from Ransomware, Phishing and Spoofing attacks.

Secure Email – Top Email Threats

Phishing

Attackers use phishing methods to exfiltrate your sensitive login information such as bank account details, social media logins, and security numbers.

 

The phishing attacks work by tricking the victim by presenting a fake page by using a typosquatting and lure them to enter the credentials or sensitive information in it.

 

Most of the phishing emails appear to be coming from authentic sources, they include the same graphics and logo of the targeted financial institutions or banks.

 

In a recent DHL, phishing campaign attackers delivered Muncy malware that targets users around the globe.

Spoofing

It is an activity that covers the email origin by spoofing its header and makes it appear from the legitimate email address from your friends, family, HR or from CEO of the company.

 

Attackers using spoofing techniques to avoid spam blacklists, hiding sender identity and pretending to be from the well-know recipient.

 

Hackers hijack email address to launch a sophisticated email campaign to deliver malware and ransomware.

Malware

Attackers use social engineered subject lines to trick the user into opening the malicious email attachment. The email attachments continue to be the most popular way to deliver malicious email.

 

By delivering malware attackers gain complete access to you, steals credentials, mine cryptocurrencies.

 

In a recent campaign, attackers deliver malware through a corrupted zip file.

 

Email malware threat’s increasing year after year, attackers take advantage of the Email and delivers a variety of threats that include Ransomware, viruses, worms, Banking trojans, and spyware. 

Whaling / Business Email Compromise

The Business Email compromise continues to grow in a rapid phase, the targeted attack not only targets large enterprises, but it also targets businesses of all sizes.

 

With BEC attack, the attackers impersonate as an executive in your company by compromising his email address and request for an urgent money transfer. BEC emails always carry a sense of urgency.

 

Now evolved, BEC-as-a-service in dark web, in which the attackers selling the target organizations email accounts.

Social Engineering

Social engineering is a part of manipulating people to grab sensitive information from them. Email spoofing is the common form of social engineering attack.

 

Attackers posed as they are from a trusted source and engage in conversation with employees to gain access to the organizations and to perform various actions.

 

The social engineering technique to lure victim’s and retrieve sensitive data and financial data from them.

Spam

Spam remains as a top threat for decades, attackers rely on a number of methods to trick users to deliver malicious contents.

 

Every time scammers continue to adapt with new techniques to trick user’s and make them fall as a victim.

 

Spammers use to get the email address from newsgroups, unscrupulous Web site operators and also they use to get guess the e-mail addresses.

Top 10 Method to Secure Email

Have Strong Passwords

Strong passwords play an important role in securing your accounts, hackers use brute forcing tools and attempt to gain access to your accounts.

 

A strong password is the first step to secure email, it is recommended to create a unique password for each of your online accounts. If you have a week password then it a cakewalk for hackers.

 

You can use Have I Been Pwned website, a way to search whether your own email address or password has been compromised by a breach at any point.

Implement 2FA

Multifactor provides an additional security layer and reduces the risks of brute-force attacks, 2FA is a combination of what the user knows and what the user has.

 

When you have 2FA turned on for your account then you will get authentication code on your phone or on Email every time, when you are logging into the account. It secure email account from password attacks.

Email Threat Protection

An Email threat protection offers you protection against malware, spyware, spam & viruses out. IT detects the phishing links and BEC attacks and name spoofing.

 

By having an Enterprise Grade Email Security you can secure your confidential data and prevents your employees from visiting sites that misuse the information.

Encrypt your Messages

Email encryption is nothing but a process of encoding the message so that only the intended recipients alone decrypt and see the message.

 

The Email encryption is the proven mechanism to keep your email private, it hides the data from prying eyes. There are two main types of encryption S/MIME and PGP/MIME.

Don’t Open Unwanted Attachments and links

Don’t open emails that received from the untrustworthy source and open the attachments only if it is required.

 

The Email is the gateway for sophisticated threats entering your organization, attackers use Email’s to deliver malware and ransomware.

 

Most Organizations defends from Spam, Malware, Ransomware, Phishing, and Malicious Attachments by using premium Threat Protection solutions.

Digitally Sign Your Emails

By adding a digitally signed email, we can make sure the email was altered while it in transit. Having an Email digitally signed ensures the integrity of the message.

 

The digital signature provides the authenticity and the digital signature in the email ensures the content hasn’t been altered in transit.

Use VPN

The use of VPN service enhances your privacy online, by using a secure and trusted VPN you can stay safe online.

 

Using a VPN doesn’t encrypt your secure Email contents, it only masks your IP address and encrypts the connection between your computer, the VPN server, and your destination server.

 

A VPN along with secure hosted email services offers you protection for spam filtering, Malicious Link protection and Phishing Guard.

Use Password Manager

Password managers keep your password safe and it allows you to set a unique password for all the accounts, it relieves the burden of remembering all the passwords.

 

A password manager allows you to set up a strong and unique password for all of your email accounts.

 

Analyze Email header

Attackers alter email headers to make the message appear to come from somewhere other than the actual source is a fraudulent email. By modifying email attackers can bypass the spam filters.

 

Analyzing the message headers is important, need to define the Return-path, Reply-To, Received, a Line beginning with X that added by email servers and security tools.

 

By analyzing the email headers carefully, you can secure email, by avoiding email’s from spoofed email address.

Avoid Extortion Emails

Extortion Emails are the new forms of phishing emails that grabs your attention by having your old passwords or some sensitive details.

 

The attackers claim they have your sensitive details and threaten that they are to disclose the email to friends, family, and coworkers if the demanded fund was not paid.

If you received such type of Emails never respond to it, you can just ignore it, if you still use the same password then change it.

Conclusion

Here we have highlighted the common email attack vectors and the measures that needs to be taken to secure email from hackers.

 

 

 

Source

[Matrix]

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