How to identify and deal with spam

Q I receive quite a few spam emails, which I manually remove using my ISP’s webmail system before I download the rest of the email to my computer with Outlook Express. However, I notice that some of these spam emails have my correct email address in the To field, while others have a string of completely random letters, which concerns me.

I have taken necessary precautions to protect my PC, with anti-virus, a firewall and anti-spyware software. However, these emails keep coming. Should I be worried?

Bob Gamble

A Besides the annoyance of having to wade through these emails, you should not worry about them, just as long as you take precautions and follow some advice. Don’t purchase any of the products they advertise, or become financially involved online with someone you do not know.

You should not give any passwords out via email, and be extra careful to check any email purporting to be from your bank is genuine.

Don’t open any attachments sent by spammers, don’t reply to spam emails and don’t click on any links in them, as this can be used to verify you have opened and read the email, inviting even more spam.

Receiving emails addressed to someone other than yourself is not a sign that your computer has been hacked, but a legitimate aspect of email systems that is being abused by spammers.

The blind carbon copy (BCC) field in an email allows you to send a message to one email address but a copy of the email is sent to one or more other addresses, which aren’t shown to any of the message recipients.

The email address listed in the TO field of the email doesn’t have to be real, but anyone whose email is listed in the BCC field will still see the spam message arrive in their inbox.

Spam is difficult to avoid once you begin receiving it. You can install software to filter spam messages after they arrive, such as Agnitium Spam Terrier but these programs can have problems differentiating between genuine email and spam.

If the volume of spam becomes frustratingly large, a quick fix is to change your email address or change to an email service that filters spam for you such as Google Mail.

This, however, brings the problem that you have to notify friends and colleagues of your new email address, as well as update the details on websites that require your email address.

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