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Avoid inadvertently creating risky emails:
Please be careful when addressing an email to many people most of them do not
know each other but can see each other email address. With the email addresses
in the row designated by the word "TO", the names will be stored in each recipient
PC and may inadvertently fall in the wrong hands. Every person on the list is
exposed to at least three dangerous risks:
- Some of the recipients may unknowingly fall victim of viruses, including Trojan Horses and
other malicious programs that scan email folders, collect and transmit the addresses to
spammers, many of whom are offshore beyond the reach of the FBI and RCMP. As a result of a
message similar to yours displaying my email address under the “TO” row, I was spammed and
lost days recovering from an insidious attack that passed through my firewall, antivirus
software and intrusion prevention systems.
- Other recipients do print the email message and will, sooner or later, innocently discard
it in a refuse bin where a growing number of dumpster divers collect and resell each e-mail
address in the black markets to resellers, spammers and innocent end users. Repeat
offenders have been caught with printed email sheets. As a cover, some also pick soft
drinks and beer cans to avoid suspicion.
- There have also been instances where email recipients have added names to their own list
for unsolicited marketing.
Solution:
- Address the message to yourself and list everyone in the "Blind Carbon Copy" row titled
Bcc. Since most email users ignore the covert theft of information taking
place daily in their own computers, the fewer machines storing our email address, the
lesser the risk of being spammed.
- Educate your correspondents, friends and family members by sharing the hyperlink
www.executive.org/email.
- Request from the sender of such risky emails to immediately delete your email address from
all their computer files and systems such as Outlook, Webmail, Lotus Notes, Eudora, other
groupware and desktop search engines (such as Google Desktop which keeps copies of deleted
files) embedded in their machines.
- Consider contacting directly all recipients of the risky email and requesting they take
the necessary steps to do the same and avoid serious consequences to everyone involved.
© A. P. Martin, 2010. All rights reserved.
Excerpts from Chapter 8: How to Harness
the Power of Email in Alain Paul Martin:
Flawless Time Management:
Managing Priorities, Deadlines, Meetings, E-Mail,
Interruptions and Saying No
Published by executive.org Press.
E-mail skills are extensively discussed in Practical Skills for
Administrative Assistants &
Executive Secretaries, a workshop applying Harvard University Global System Tools™.
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