Say someone emails you out of the blue. The best course of action is usually to do nothing. Don’t respond or click a link or attachment in their message, as doing so might be risky and make you vulnerable to phishing scams.

If you are unsure whether or not an email is legitimate, try to verify the email’s legitimacy by contacting the sender directly. Do not click on any links in the email. If possible, use a previous (legitimate) email to ensure the contact information you have for the sender is authentic before you contact them.

Blackmail emails claiming to have “caught” you visiting certain sites or viewing adult content should be ignored. Responding to them or following their requests is very risky and offers no reward, so don’t do it.

When you sign up for a new online account, it’s possible you’ll be asked to confirm your identity. Sometimes, this is an innocuous request asking you to confirm via a text message or other channel. In other cases, it might be more malicious. Be wary of requests that ask you to upload a selfie or […]

Gmail provides a lot of flexibility in how you send and check emails. It can even serve as a mail client for non-Gmail accounts such as those hosted at Yahoo and Outlook.com and send mail from their addresses. Every now and then, review the settings tab in Gmail to make sure that the “Send Mail […]

When you receive a fishy email, the best course of action is to either flag it as spam or block the address. Do not reply to it, as doing so could put you at risk of further spam and possibly data interception. Most of all, do not disclose anything sensitive, such as your Social Security […]