Like any service connected to a worldwide network with millions of computers, this, in addition to offering us some juicy advantages, can also cause us some damage. Not because of the service itself but because of the inappropriate use that is given to it by some people.
The main problems that you can run into, and that we advise you to keep well to review until you know them by heart, are:
SPAM
It is the massive sending of emails without the sender requesting them. There is a thin line, very diffuse, between advertising and spam emails because, sometimes, we are the ones who give our addresses when creating profiles and others but, over time or even when we have eliminated these profiles, we continue to receive these emails when it is evident that if we are not part of that community we have no interest.
On the other hand, we must also consider the emails that are sent to thousands and thousands of accounts without considering the characteristics of the sender; there are no filters, there is no specific target, they are sent bombarding . In this case, the addresses are obtained by buying databases or simply by guessing or searching for them with specific software to avoid SPAM mail and control this type of unwanted actions.
Be careful because another very common way to get your address and then send you indiscriminate advertising is the raffle. A product is raffled and you have to fill in a form with your data, among which is, of course, your email. Of course, by participating you are consenting to its use for advertising purposes. Keep an eye on this point and uncheck it or reject it.
Some advices:
- Have an email account to access sites for consultation and entertainment, such as news, games, etc. Leave your personal address only in the hands of trust.
- When you receive these types of emails, do not click on them; This serves to know that you are active and to keep sending you more and more.
- Of course, never access any site from a link in an email of dubious origin.
Phishing
This is the worst of your problems when it comes to email problems. The concept refers to the identity theft of an entity, company or corporation in order to obtain the user’s credentials or some other data is known as phishing (especially the payment method).
The email, which appears to be legitimate due to its address and its identical appearance to that which we could receive from the company in question, includes a message informing you of a situation to be solved by entering your profile (it may be from your bank , PayPal, Netflix …). In general, this involves updating your payment methods or verifying if a recent login has been made by you, although this is something that depends on the objective of the scam.
You are, of course, asked to access your user, from a link that is conveniently included in the text , to carry out the corresponding action. Never, ever, do it. If you have a profile in the corporation that it claims to represent, enter their website from the browser, as you would usually do, never from an email. If there really is a problem, you can solve it by entering the official website and accessing your profile data.
Economic fraud
In this case we see many examples. An individual writes you, usually someone important in their country or community, indicating that they have a problem with their money, that it has been withheld or similar, asking for your help to get it out of the country in exchange for a small incentive for you, of course.
The process includes that you put money on your part for costs in lawyers and other excuses since, at that moment, the person in question does not have any cash.
We also have the sick person who wants to donate his fortune to us because he considers his heirs to be unworthy. That money is in a security company and will be given at the time of the owner’s death, with you having to make the contact and the corresponding operations, which include, of course, a financial outlay.
Another well-known case is the gift of large-scale products (such as cars), having to pay, on your part, only the shipping costs from a country that, of course, is not yours.
The lottery prize that we get without having played no longer attracts hardly any victims, but there it is. The operation is identical to the previous ones: pay fees, taxes or similar.
Low interest loans have become very famous in recent years due to social need. They offer them to you with amazing facilities, you deliver data and, of course, they accept it, on the condition that you pay notary, management and other expenses.
We are given a job offer in another country (or we are directly told that they have given us the position if we are willing to travel) but we must advance money for management expenses.
Mule
Essentially, you act as an intermediary to put money previously received on certain platforms that do not offer tracking . What you do is participate in a stolen money laundering.
Infections
These emails include malicious attachments with computer viruses that, if downloaded, will infect your device .
There are also, more currently, emails with links, whose objective is to access, through these, a file that includes a macro , which is a program that will run on your device, performing automatic actions and downloading, in turn, the malware that cybercriminals want to introduce.
