Protecting the privacy of your email

Email has become a major target for identity thieves, but a few simple precautions can prevent the most common problems with the security and confidentiality of your email:

• Only use supported email clients
• Use authenticated email SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol using TCP port 25)
• Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to secure email while it is in transit
• Email attachments:
1. If the sender is unknown – never open the attachment. Contact the sender by phone to verify whether this is a legitimate email and attachment.
2. If the sender is known – be critical about what the content might be and whether it was sent intentionally.
• If you receive an urgent virus warning from a friend or stranger, confirm that it is not a hoax before forwarding the message to anyone.
• Confirm that an embedded link goes where it is expected to go, before you click on it. There are two ways to do this: 1) In a browser, roll over the link and look at the bottom left of the screen. The URL should display. 2) Copy the link (select--> edit -->copy) and then paste the link into something like Word or a text editor.

This is how a disguised link to a fraud site might look when pasted into Word. The real URL will pop up when you hold the cursor over the pasted link text:

A URL with an IP number in it (http://130.230.330.44/) is almost certainly a fraudulent site. Don't click on the link.

---

Related topics

• Email attachment renaming & filtering
• File Transfer Facility to transfer large files instead of email
• Identity theft
• Phishing
• Spotting fake URLs in fraudulent emails and web sites
• Signature files for confidentiality notices
• Spam at Yale
• Spoofed/Forged To: and From: Headers

Related University Policies & Procedures

• Yale HIPAA: Guidance on the Use of Email Containing PHI

Related online resources

• Symantec Virus Encyclopedia
• Symantec Hoax Encyclopedia