5 Things That Can Keep Hackers Out of Your Email

Filed under: IT Support

Victoria Rausch
Owner, Davik Consulting, Inc.

Your email contains nearly your whole life (or business). Just imagine if someone hacked into it! Email is often the key to not only personal information, but to various online accounts. And for business email addresses, the risk multiplies. You likely have sensitive client information stored in email, as well as your email addresses being used to access various payment and other services.

So how do you keep your business email accounts secure? Follow these five steps.

Check your security settings. Your email accounts should include all of the following:

  • Two-step verification
  • Account recovery options
  • Remove any less-secure apps that have access to email data
  • Remove browser extensions that you don’t need
  • Screen locks on all devices that access company email

Keep your browsers secure. Because browsers can access email accounts, check your settings. Always update your operating system, the browser itself, and all apps when prompted to do so.

Use strong passwords. Hackers run programs that can guess simple passwords, so create strong and secure passwords by following these steps:

  • Use random strings of characters, not real words, names, etc
  • Use both upper- and lower-case letters
  • Incorporate both numbers and symbols
  • Change passwords about every six months

Avoid suspicious emails. Don’t open email attachments without verifying their authenticity with the sender. Don’t click on links to external websites that ask for login information; navigate to those sites in a new window. And instruct your employees on avoiding attachments and other suspicious messages.

Encrypt your email program. And of course, the best way to avoid interception or other email interference is to simply encrypt all of your emails. This way, no one who intercepts a message can do anything with it, because it’s incomprehensible to them.

At Davik Consulting, we do offer email encryption as well as other independent information technology services. Give us a call at 888-RING-MY-TECH, and we’ll help you get your business email accounts secured.