Despite our knowledge of the e-mailed virus and malware, e-mail is still one
of the most prominent ways of infection.
A new feature slowly being rolled
out to Gmail users should help make this dubious practice a little more
noticeable. The update recently pushed out to web mail and Android users will attempt to authenticate the sender of any new e-mails. If Gmail
is not able to verify the e-mail address it will place a large ‘?’ next to
the name of the sender (seen in the image above.) While this feature is not
going to prevent any infections itself it should help users be a bit more
aware of clicking any links or opening any attachments from unknown senders.
Many ‘hacker’s that send these will ‘spoof’ somebody else’s e-mail so it may
APPEAR to come from a friend, or even a reputable company such as UPS.
Hopefully this should be a much larger hint to users that the e-mail should
be taken with suspicion. Along with the added sender verification Gmail is
also added a prompt that will appear when attempt to click malicious web
links received in Gmail. Now, none of these are going to 100% prevent any
attacks, these are simply red flags that should help you recognize potential
threats. And of course this is not going to flag every suspicious email and
every suspicious link but hopefully this extra level of security will help
users be more aware. But, as always, if an infection did slip by you and
infected your system Frankenstein Computers can resolve most infections
within 48 hours with no loss of data and at a flat rate!
Frankenstein Computers has been taking care of our happy clients since 1999. We specialize in IT Support, Cyber Security, IT Service, IT Security, Office 365, Cloud, VOIP, SPAM, Wireless, Network Design, MAC repair, PC Repair, Virus Removal, remote support, web design and much more. Check out what our clients have to say about us on Yelp!