Your email inbox used to be safe.  You could download your messages, and get about the business at hand that they necessitated.  We all know that’s not the case anymore. More and more your email has become a collection point for many things that you never bargained for – viruses, scams, solicitations, and more.  None of this is exactly breaking news anymore.  But what has changed, is that these threats have become harder and harder to spot and therein lies the trouble for consumers.

It used to be enough to wade through your email and delete out the messages from individuals you don’t know.  These were the obvious items that probably boiled down to some form of a virus, scam, or solicitation.  But it’s not enough anymore, and it’s all because of a widely used technique called spoofing.  Spoofing is a process of a message being sent to you from a third party that appears to be from a colleague, friend, acquaintance, etc.  By simply believing the information is from someone you know, you quickly assign a higher level of trust to the message, and that is where the problem begins.

As crazy as it sounds, it takes no effort at all to make a message appear to be from any source you want to.  When email was conceptualized, there was no forethought into how abusers would misuse the system.  Therefore no guards were put into place to verify that messages are from the sources they claim to be.

With email promoting any type of financial scheme or product, be especially careful. If it sounds too good to be true, then of course it probably is.  Before investing in any product, system, or company - do your homework.  Time upfront will be well worth the money saved in the long run to avoid being the victim of a scam.

Solutions to this problem will eventually present themselves.  Already there are efforts to develop message I.D. systems which will verify the authenticity of the sender before allowing transmissions. Until this or other types of technologies are globally in place, spoofing will continue to be a problem.

Some companies are already using technologies to circumvent these types of problems. Before accepting an email, it is probed for certain characteristics and several checks are done to authenticate the source.  If it is not authenticated it may be rejected and never make it to the recipients inbox.  Other companies are slower to move to these types of setups because of some of the drawbacks.  Many of the hoops that messages have to jump through are based on criteria that haven’t been universally applied.  Users find that in many cases legitimate emails they need to receive are not getting past these checks.

The bottom line is to question your messages.  It’s not enough anymore to let down your guard when the item appears to be from a known source.  Ask questions to yourself.  Where you expecting an email from the individual?  Does this message seem within the normal limits of the type of communication I would generally receive from the individual?  What about the time in which it was sent – is that typical of this individual?  If you’re not comfortable with your own answers on those types of questions, proceed with caution.  In extreme cases, perhaps it’s worth a phone call to verify the message. What’s that old saying about an ounce of prevention?