SPAM is the sending of mass emails with unsolicited advertising that arrives at email boxes and / or is emitted from them. In this article we explain how to combat it.
In order for you not to be the victim of receiving thousands of junk emails and / or issuing them from your email accounts, even if you have not personally issued them, it is essential that you follow some basic security rules.
We have noticed an increase in attempts to violate passwords in email accounts by intruders in order to send SPAM through email accounts that do not belong to them, as well as the spread of viruses that connect to servers thanks to the fact that they get computers from users who are not adequately protected with security software packages for Internet use.
Regarding the handling of user names and passwords, it is essential that the access codes must be made up of not less than 12 characters, using lowercase letters, capital letters, numbers and punctuation marks. Preferably, repeated characters should not be used in the configuration of the passwords or personal data that are easy to deduce and / or investigate.
Under no circumstances should user names and passwords be copied to visible public places, such as sheets of paper attached to PCs, online forums, web pages, blogs, cell phone text messages, etc.
Email accounts published on web sites or portals (your company or third parties) should never be exposed. All contact associated with emails through websites or portals must be made using contact forms that do not show the internal recipient, since there are spammer applications that detect email accounts published on websites and add them to their databases. to bombard them of junk mails and / or issue emails using them as referrers of the shipment.
Under no circumstances should contact and / or any other information be provided to third parties, by any means including personal conversations, phone calls, emails, among others. It should be noted that one way to get email passwords is by requesting that information be changed through an email with links or links so that when the person clicks, they enter the data. This is then used by intruders to use their email accounts to SPAM (broadcast thousands of emails advertising illegal products). Importantly , Email service providers NEVER ask users to change their email account details and / or access to online dashboards via emails with direct links to such changes. If you receive this type of email asking you to make changes or enter data through links, simply discard that email and do not take any other action.
When you receive emails with attached files whose contents and / or origin are not known, regardless of whether the sender seems to come from the email account of a known person, immediately delete the email and do not under any circumstances open the attached file as it may contain virus and / or other malicious software that could be installed on your computer.
Before publishing and / or uploading files of any kind from your computer to a server on the Internet (eg where you have published your website, blog, etc.), be sure to comply with the following aspects:
Verify / Analyze in depth the PCs (computers) from which you update your website or where you have configured your FTP account, using a complete security suite (eg Kaspersky Internet Security). If you do not have a suitable anti-malware, anti-spyware and / or antivirus, and you have been the victim of a virus that emits spam, you may have to format and restart your computer and then install the security suite. If you already have them and they were not updated please update and / or improve the security suite and then pass all the verifications to your PC. NEVER connect to servers using a PC in a public place(ex. CyberCafes). In turn, never use a browser to connect via FTP or leave your FTP password recorded in the browser and / or in the design software (eg dreamweaver) that you use to upload the files to the server.
Once you have ensured that your PC is disinfected, make sure that the files to be used for your website do not contain malicious code or files and / or folders that do not correspond to your own applications (this includes iframe tag code and / or functions javascript that you have not written on your own).
If you manage and / or modify a website on your own, do not use web applications in php, html and / or javascript that come from non-certified sites. If you include code that you do not know completely, perhaps this is how you are introducing the malicious code to your site. Avoid visiting suspicious online websites and never disable your PC's security suite.
Update the Acrobat Reader software on your PC (PDF reader) since through PDF files opened from the Internet you can inject viruses with Trojans that create this type of problem.
Once you have ensured that your PC is completely clean and safe and your website code has been cleaned up by removing all the malicious code from the html, php and / or js files, proceed to connect to the server and then upload the site web using a secure FTP application (eg CuteFTP). Do not record the password in the FTP application.
IMPORTANT: If after reading these recommendations you consider that in your case you have not fully complied with these steps then we recommend that you URGENTLY enter your server control panel and change the passwords of ALL your email accounts in such a way that they comply with safety standards. At the same time, you should review everything related to the management of your network computers in terms of security as well as ALL the files you have uploaded to the server and your FTP accounts. If you get vulnerabilities in this process, please ask the administrator of your site or web portal to delete all the files from the server and to reload the purged files from the disinfected computers.
Finally, this is essential because in the event of SPAM and / or virus emission situations in their email accounts, the server provider would be obliged to suspend them temporarily until the situation is corrected and / or definitive depending on of the seriousness of the matter.
Success for all…
