E-Mail Communication Methods
The number of staff members that are using e-mail as a communication method is on the increase, which doesn’t pose as a problem to me. However I am getting increasingly worried by the amount of e-mails that have been opened, that are either phishing for details or involve virus attachments. Taking this into consideration I have took it upon myself to write a report for you. This will express the dangers of these viruses/attachments, with the aim of helping to reduce the number of dangerous e-mails that are being opened within the workplace. Not only this but also in the long term it will help to protect not only yourself but also the company’s network.
Primarily I will start with computer viruses. A virus is something harmful that infects your computer, and all your data. This could stem from things such as a link or an email attachment and could potentially cause a lot of damage to your computer. A few years ago a virus called Sobig.F affected a wide range of companies around the world. This was a mass e-mailing virus which was sent to millions of people. Since the virus had made its first appearance more than three million copies have been intercepted. The virus often contained the subject ‘RE:details’ with the text ‘Please see the attached file for details’. People often clicked on the attachment which then activated the virus. Once this had happened it tried to connect to a website to download a backdoor Trojan which would then make your computer a liability to other viruses. This links in to my next topic that I would like to inform you about, phishing. Phishing is an e-mail which is sent to you trying to gain your personal details and also having the intention of robbing you. Over the past few years these have steadily been on the increase so it’s important that you are aware of the potential clues so that you can if it is a no-legitimate phishing scam. Often the e-mails are laid out in an informal manner (no clear paragraphed structure) with bad grammar such as spelling mistakes and sentences that don’t seem to make sense. In order to protect yourself from harmful viruses or dangerous e-mails if any files are attached, you can simply scan your computer which will then detect if these files are potentially harmful to your computer.
With recent advancements in technology e-mail is becoming a very popular way of communication in the business world. This is mainly because it is simple and easy. There are also many things that you can do on e-mail. I am therefore going to talk you through how three useful e-mail communication techniques work.
Firstly there is ‘Cc’. This stands for Carbon Copy and this is where in an e-mail you can send it to a secondary recipient (or more if required). These recipients can all be seen by each other within the e-mail that has been sent. This is advantageous to a business with quite a tall structure. In a business with a tall structure face to face communication tends to be limited therefore email is quite often the way of communication. When you need to communicate with more than one person you can Cc other people you need to speak to with ease.
What’s more there is also ‘Bcc’ which stands for Blind Carbon Copy. Bcc is where you can send an e-mail to more than one person but the person who is the ‘bcc’ can see the email but the person who the email is sent to can’t see the ‘bcc’. An advantage to Bcc is you can send an e-mail to a whole group of people whilst you also keep all of their details confidential. This would be good in work situations. For example in a workplace you could send an e-mail to a colleague and bcc in the manager of your department.
Finally there is the spam filter. A spam filter is where your computer separates harmful/unwanted messages into a different folder. This is commonly known as the ‘junk’ folder. If a person has a business e-mail that keeps getting unwanted junk e-mails that are getting mixed up with their important business e-mails this is a very convenient tool as they can simply separate the two into two different folders. However a disadvantage to this is quite often special offers are sent to you by e-mail. These can commonly get misinterpreted as ‘junk’ which would mean you are missing out.
I hope you all take this report into deep consideration and that you all take the necessary precautions in order to try and protect yourselves from these potentially harmful viruses. I would also recommend that you try to familiarise yourself and use the communication techniques that a computer brings to you as they are very advantageous and quite easy to use.
