This scenario could happen to anyone of us: You receive an email from someone you know (friend, colleague, sister, brother, etc.) with whom you might have exchanged emails before. Surprisingly enough, when you open the email you notice that it’s SPAM and is not actually from the person you had expected. At this point, it’s only natural that a load of questions arise.
- How did they get my Email address?
- Who might have given it to them?
- Did I go to places on the internet I shouldn’t have gone to?
- Did I subscribe to suspicious mailing list?
- Is there a way I can fix this?
- Etc., etc., etc.?
Unfortunately, once the damage is done there is no way to reverse the situation. YES, it’s too bad and YES, your inbox will soon be drastically swamped with spam.
What to do?
Though it tends be irritating and lengthy, changing your email address and updating all your contacts is unfortunately the ultimate solution. Consider that, according to Jay Baer, 30% of subscribers change their email addresses annually. You are not alone!
Recommendation:
I personally recommend having TWO email accounts:
- Make one account your professional Email address. Give it only to specific people and recommend that they not reveal it to anyone or send you useless emails.
- Make the second account your All-purpose address. This account can be used to subscribe to mailing lists, or to Websites for specific information, to send jokes back and forth among your friends, etc.
How to protect your Email address:
To protect your email address:
- Do not give your email address to anyone, unless you know they can be trusted.
- Do not subscribe to any web form OR, if you must, use the all-purpose account.
- If you want to send/forward a message to multiple (not work related) users, include only one Email in the To: field and add the rest to the BCc: field. This way, all email accounts involved are hidden from malicious hands.
- Before you click on UNSUBSCRIBE, make sure that when you hover your mouse over the link, it points to the correct domain the email in question is coming from. If not, you are simply confirming to the spammer that your account is valid, at which point your address will not be removed
I would venture to say there are other ways to protect your email addresses but these are the ones I categorize as obvious measures that we should all be aware of. And certainly make sure that you have leading anti-spam protection to make sure that the spam emails, if they are sent, don’t get through – worst case scenario of course.
When you need to provide an email address to an internet form which you don’t really trust, you could also use a disposable email address, like the ones provided by some specialized services.
All messages sent to this address will be redirected to your real email address, but after a few hours/days, the temporary address will be destroyed and useless to spammers.