How to recognise spam e-mails and how to prevent them

Spam (often referred to as ‘junk‘) is any unrequested and unwanted messages that are sent electronically. These messages are usually sent (by e-mail) to numerous recipients and relentlessly fill up the inboxes of the world. The majority of these are unsolicited bulk e-mails (UBE) such as chain mails or unsolicited commercial e-mails (UCE). The recipient is usually asked to buy a certain product, reveal personal data, click on a website, or open a file attachment.

Spam e-mails make up around half of all e-mails sent worldwide. The USA is the biggest generator of spam e-mail in the world. In some countries spam e-mails are decreasing and this is due to network providers increasing spam protection and the criminal authorities acting more strictly against spam e-mails.

The term spam comes from the American canned meat brand (‘spiced ham’), and there is even a Monty Python sketch that centres around the curiosities of this tinned meat. In the sketch, the word “spam” is mentioned so often that a normal conversation is no longer possible. A similar situation applies to the communication variant of the word: so many useless spam e-mails flood into a user’s inbox that it becomes almost impossible to discern between wanted and unwanted content.

It is impossible to defend yourself completely from spam e-mails since there are too many spammers and spambots out there that send their daily mails. There are, however, a few procedures and tricks to reduce the volume of spam you receive. Only give your main e-mail address when it is totally necessary and definitely do not use it for questionable giveaways or for registering with unknown websites. For less important internet services, it makes sense to use a second e-mail address that is not used for any other activities. This is how to protect your inbox from spam e-mails.

Avoid publishing your main address on internet sites. Make sure to only give your e-mail address to protected online portals and communities and use a modified spelling, such as writing ‘(at)’ or ‘AT’ instead of using the ‘@’ sign. Rather than using a dot in front of the top-level domain, you could write the word ‘DOT’. Some spambots, however, can recognise this disguise and can even generate the correct e-mail address from it. An alternative method is to display your e-mail address as text image. Note that nothing can protect you from spam completely.

A spam filter is a type of software that recognises and takes care of unwanted messages. These filters are used by every professional e-mail provider and e-mail programme. Many of these programmes achieve this with automatic inspections of e-mail content, which is known as the blacklist method. This process uses a list of words with typical spam expressions and phrases and, along with additional processes, spam e-mails can be recognised. No method can fully guarantee spam recognition, and it is not uncommon for spam filters to classify normal mail as promotional messages. Nevertheless some spam e-mails can end up in your regular inbox. Despite having a few hiccups, you should definitely make sure a spam filter checks your e-mails.

If spam is not being filtered out in advance, then you need to recognise it yourself. In such cases only expert spam mail care will yield reliable protection. Many mails can be recognised as spam simply by their subject lines: winner notifications, offensive content, or attractive saving possibilities. When these mails come through the spam filter, the user should mark them as spam. By allocating them to the spam folder, the filter in turn learns to sort out new types of junk mail automatically.

Links and file attachments from suspicious mail should not be opened under any circumstances. Spam content is usually hiding behind these unknown senders and weird-sounding subject lines.

If malware content is accidently opened, your computer can only be saved by an anti-virus programme. The purpose of this software is to recognise known viruses, Trojans, worms, spyware and so on. When malware attempts to access your computer, the anti-virus programme will block it. No anti-virus programme can offer complete protection since the software can only identify and block known malware. Nevertheless an anti-virus programme belongs to the most fundamental security measures of a computer.

Be aware that operating systems need current updates in order to be able to stop any security breaches. It is recommended to back up your computer’s most important data onto another medium. This way you will at least have a backup copy should the system be damaged by malware. If you want to protect yourself as much as possible from spam e-mails and their consequences, you should use a spam filter, an anti-virus programme, and create a backup copy. The best protection is to be cautious when opening suspicious e-mails and handing out your e-mail address.