– Email Filtering 3
Next week we will look at an email filtering service that actually works and offers a return on investment that can be 50 times its minuscule monthly cost.
This week we will round out our previous 2 articles about email security and in particular today talk about email filtering. We have already suggested that if you are getting overwhelmed with junk emails, you could consider either ‘abandoning’ your current email address altogether or demoting it to be used as a ‘secondary’ email after creating a new ‘primary’ address. Most home users can make this sort of transition without too much pain.
If however, you are running a business it may be near impossible to ‘drop’ your current main email address. So what can be done here? We recommend and use an email filtering service by the name of MailGuard. This company is Australian based and specialise in the area of email security. If you are using Microsoft 365 to host your business email addresses (as you should be), MailGuard can be added as a plug-in filter.
For me, having MailGuard filter my emails reduces the number that I must read by around 50%. That figure was not a typo! Around 50 out of every 100 emails that are addressed to my work email address are simply spam and junk emails. MailGuard knocks these out before they even get to my inbox! Using this same service across dozens of our customers, 50% is a very average or standard figure.
For one customer that has had the same email address for years we see MailGuard filter out around 96% of their emails every month! Can you imagine the time saving here? The benefits are quite numerous as not only are you saving time, but you are now more focused on the emails that matter. It also weeds out so many potential threats, that this filtering service has also saved many customers from certain virus infection.
At this point, I need to reiterate to both home users and business users alike that whatever you did in the past to run your computer systems and keep yourself relatively safe is not nearly good enough now. IT threats are a rapidly evolving moving target to the point that unless your security processes are also changing and evolving then you are getting left behind the ‘average’ security measures and therefore putting yourself at risk.
It is a tragic shame to see such a useful communication system (emails) so hijacked and abused that these measures have become essential to be able to continue to efficiently use so many email systems.
Today I would also like to bring some focus onto the massive Internet outage that so many experienced yesterday between around 3am and 9am. We also lost connectivity at the shop and as a result my mobile was ringing hot. The most important thing to do during this outage was nothing! So many people automatically assumed that they needed to do something with their router, network, firewall or computer – which then caused them grief when the Internet came back on for everyone else.
If your Internet stops working – try asking a neighbour if theirs has gone down too. Certainly try turning your modem/router off and back on again – but nothing more. Don’t embark upon changing settings everywhere thinking that you have to do something!
Future Byte Me topics can be emailed to [email protected] and Bruce is still contactable at Kerr Solutions, 205 Musgrave Street or on 49 222 400.
We have developed a brilliant self-help troubleshooting section on our website – so if you are having computer problems, but can still browse the web, please check it out. Click here to go to Kerr Solutions IT Troubleshooting
For more advice and assistance from Kerr Solutions, like and follow us on Facebook
Need IT support?
Phone Kerr IT to gain expert computer support.
Call now on 49 222 400
So you can Delete your computer problems!
Kerr Solutions IT are open for business as usual and as well as providing phone / remote control support, we can also pick up your problem PC via your doorstep & return it all sorted – or return a complete replacement PC.
Please phone us on 07 49 222 400 during business hours for help, support and sales or email us [email protected]