Quote:
Originally Posted by larcha
Email programs usually show a preview of the messages received. Does this constitute "opening" the email? Should the preview function be turned off?
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It likely depends on the mail program you are using (web browser, outlook, other standalone tool, etc). You can try looking online for recommended security settings for the tool you use.
The concern is that fully loading a message can automatically follow links and retrieve content that could be harmful to your computer. Some tools and configurations might retrieve the entire message when it is received while other will only show the subject line or the text-only portions of a message until the user allows the rest of the content.
Look in your settings for something along the lines of "Privacy and Security." Disable anything that involves automatically retrieving content or allowing remote content or allow images. You should think hard about enabling anything that sounds like the tool is making it easier for content to get onto your computer.
Some steps that I take:
- Disable any automatic retrieval
- Enable automatic SPAM filtering (I never open anything in the SPAM/JUNK folder)
- If the subject is obviously a scam, delete the message without even looking at it, even before a preview if that's possible
- Don't allow the tool to retrieve any images or content until I'm comfortable the message is legitimate
- Only if I trust the sender and the subject and if I really need to images do I allow the tool to retrieve those - if I can get the gist of the message without the images then I don't need to take that risk
- RARELY do I open emails containing forwarded jokes