Email Hygiene – Support @ Enlighten

Practicing good email hygiene is a bit of a technical voodoo art.

Some smart behaviour can prevent viruses, spam, blacklisting, and other terrible things so here are some good tips.

Don't give out your email address too often and in public places
Don't share your password
Don't use the same password on different accounts and services
Use complex passwords (there are lots of opinions about what a complex password is but generally 14+ characters, number/letters/special characters, and don't use any part of your username.
Change your password occasionally, or possibly your email address if it's getting too much spam.
Don't use an obvious email address (i.e., avoid accounts@ info@ and admin@ etc.)
Don't type your email address into forums posts or other public places where it may get harvested.
Have separate throw-away email address(es)
Don't subscribe to dodgy services.
Have an SPF record in DNS to help prevent email spoofing (I can help)
Use a spam blocker, info: https://support.enlightenhosting.com/hc/en-us/articles/360029922692-Spam-blocking
Use a virus checker
Use an inbox rule. tip: https://support.enlightenhosting.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032813411-Custom-inbox-rule-webmail
Learn how to spot suspicious emails. Always be suspicious.
Unexpected email = be especially suspicious.
Check before clicking links, or opening documents in emails
Check with and subscribe to to breach services (I can recommend https://haveibeenpwned.com/ )
Keep your desktop and other devices secure
Follow other general email best-practices -(some tips here: https://support.enlightenhosting.com/hc/en-us/articles/208175186-Email-best-practices )
Consider Spear-Phishing and Whaling https://www.cert.govt.nz/business/common-threats/protecting-your-business-from-spear-phishing-and-whaling
'hover' over email addresses to see the actual instead of the "friendly" address and pay attention to sneaky changes to email addresses (they look like legit email addresses, but they may have slipped in a special character, or changed something subtle).

Marketing

Use a different email address for any marketing
Don't send marketing messages with lots of CCs; use separate messages.
Use a professional email marketing platform (such as mailchimp) rather than your own email system for bulk mail-outs
Follow anti-spam law: https://www.dia.govt.nz/Spam-NZ-Spam-Law-for-Businesses and http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2007/0007/latest/whole.html#DLM405198

Regarding email security and safety in general, I'm sure you can google more and different advice, it's a bit of a balance between usability and security and there are lots of opinions.