What is spam?
Many of us hear the word spam or have been hacked through spam messages and do not know what it means and how it is done.
First, the word spam simply means any type of unwanted communication on the Internet.
There are many forms of spam, but the most prevalent and common is email or e-mail spam.
Spam is also any form of email with content that is linked to enticing the receiver to click on an embedded link.
Such extent of the spam spread, in fact, comes as a result of a promised profit for the owner, and the temptation that he has made a specific profit.
Another form of spam is annoying advertising messages. This type does not pose a danger to the user, but it is annoying so that sometimes you receive messages from sites you do not know, messages that often carry the same content, which is advertising, for example, reaching many links to products, attractive offers, profit sites, free programs.
Another type of spam has users’ devices send large numbers of unwanted messages to other people without their knowledge for a propaganda or advertising purpose. The danger of this type of spam is that the infected users’ devices are sent messages without their knowledge.
Using malware, a hacker may install other programs that control a victim’s computer and send spam with their connection. The hacker stands to gain by using the victim’s connections to send large numbers of spam messages.
Many of us ask the same question, is spam harmful?
Spam can be more than just an annoyance, as it costs time, money, and resources to process, filter, or even delete it manually. The spread of spam and the resources to avoid spam detracts from the appeal of email as a social media, plus you may experience other negative effects.
Phishing
Phishing is a scam in which the victim is tricked into giving up information they believe they are entering into a secured website (such as a bank), but are actually entering into a fake website owned by the scammer. Phishing can happen by email.
In other words, phishing is a fraudulent attempt to retrieve private information such as login IDs, passwords, and credit card details. Phishing is often carried out through email messages or websites that have been designed to look like real ones.
Smishing
Another form of spam, known as smishing because it mimics the “phish,” sends large numbers of unwanted messages to other people.
Tips to avoid spam
- If you receive a suspicious email with a misleading subject line, the best thing you can do to help eliminate spam is to not open it, not respond to it in any way, even just clicking the unsubscribe ad at the bottom of the email.
- Find the sender, click on the email sender's name in the header and look at the address in any suspicious email, you might claim to be from (Apple) or your credit card company, but when the sending address is from (joe.smith) or a person in a country where you don't have any contacts, then you know you have a fraudulent spam.
- Deal with spoofed emails and unsolicited mail by not taking action on any of them, neither clicking on links and attachments contained within, nor replying to them.
- Never enter any personal information in response to an email that asks you to enter your username, account number, or other personal information.
- Contact the university’s websites administrations and inform them that there is a message with suspicious content.