Today the use of emails is very common and also very necessary for human life, just imagine that in a single day the sending and receiving of more than 2,700 million emails has been recorded, thus displacing emails postcards that some platforms have made it the most accessible for communication between family, friends and of course work matters.
Over the years, different platforms have emerged for these communication reasons, among the two main most used platforms are Gmail and Hotmail , in fact it is very easy to create a Gmail account. There are also other platforms such as “Yahoo Mail”, “GMX” among others which will be discussed in another article.
Despite being used for communication purposes between legitimate or “real” users, over time illegitimate users began to exist, who took great advantage of these last months of the pandemic and at the same time of the hyperconnectivity of all users to launch a species of attacks through emails called “spam”.
What is a spam?
Spam are really annoying messages that are sent to users of different email platforms in a massive way, with or without their authorization. These messages are commonly known by the vulgar name “Junk Mail” , for this reason the same email platforms filter all these “Spam” and file them in a folder exclusively for them.
All these unwanted messages on our part are sent by large or small companies of which we have had direct or indirect contact with them, through the so-called “Email marketing” (which is the communication between companies and customers potentials).
But not everything happens by chance, sometimes we ourselves are the ones to blame for receiving these emails , since sometimes due to ignorance in this area, we provide our data (such as our email name) to pages of unknown origin or simply from eye-catching advertisements specially made for this purpose to mislead users.
What do these spam messages contain and what happens if I reply to them?
Some spam messages can be harmless, but unfortunately most of them are not so and put us at risk. Since some may simply have advertising information on airfare offers and their promotions, others have so-called “Mass Phishing” that are sent by an illegitimate user, which have from false advertisements, to deceptive links, which may contain viruses, which They put our computers and devices at risk and therefore all the information we have on them.
The ideal when receiving spam is to ignore it completely or delete it without even opening it, but as the saying goes “Curiosity killed the cat” , right? In some cases, the misleading advertising will have the name “you have won the lottery” and the main thing they will ask for will be data and important information from you, such as those related to your bank accounts, causing future fraud.
The issue does not end here, the simple fact of opening one of these unwanted emails, they have images that when downloaded warn the “illegitimate” user responsible for sending spam that there is someone on the other side of the screen, giving opportunity to more messages of this type and in this way a chain.
On the other hand, malware can also be downloaded through deceptive links, causing damage and complications when executed on any of our devices. That is why it is important to always know when our PC may contain a virus.
How can we prevent being victims of these deceptions?
Actually they are really simple steps, the first is based on not opening for any reason or blocking these spam emails and thus avoid being part of a deception or trap that puts you or your devices at risk, the second will be to try not to spread your personal information or that of your acquaintances on any untrusted website .
Finally, try to maintain interest in information similar to this in addition to sharing it with your acquaintances to prevent them from being part of these deceptions.
