Many people have email accounts that they use to send and receive information from others for business and personal reasons. They are a very helpful tool for communication but can also be subject to various threats which may lead to loss. Some people are malicious and may steal confidential information or impersonate a user to commit crimes or damage their reputation. It is good to ensure that your email is as secure as possible to avoid being a victim of such threats and safeguard your account information. When creating a password, one has to ensure it is strong enough and impossible to guess for other people.
A password should be long and consist of a combination of letters, numbers and special characters which make it difficult to guess. By creating different passwords for each online account, one is being more cautious since even if one is compromised, others will still be safe. Users should consider using verification techniques provided by email providers which make it difficult to gain unauthorized access to accounts not owned. Having more than one account is sometimes helpful since you can use the alternative in case one of them is compromised.
Emails from friends and other casual people should be dedicated to different accounts from work and other official emails. This way one avoids being in a situation where all your information gets compromised and lead to further complications. Viruses and other destructive programs can damage your systems and as such they should be countered in time through frequent scans. Some email providers have incorporated a tool that usually scans the emails for threats before opening them and they are really helpful. There are many ways of stealing data or compromising an account including sending emails that will do this upon opening.
To avoid falling victim of phishing and other information stealing techniques, it is better to ignore unknown emails or move them to spam folder. Hackers are known to include links in emails which upon clicking open sites requesting for personal information. Attachments can be used to install viruses into a system or destroy data when opened which makes it good to avoid them. Sometimes you get emails from unknown sources that contain a button to unsubscribe and you may be tempted to click to get rid of them but it should not be done as they are risky. Email accounts and other sensitive data should not be used when connected to public networks. The public networks are not very secure and as such most hackers use this as an advantage to steal and hack into user accounts. A person should consider using spam filters that identify and block emails from sources unknown to the user or those reported by others as malicious.