Bytetin Three: Level-up… with a non-personal, personal email account

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Your online identity consists of two items: your email addresses and passwords.  We’ll cover passwords later this month but, today, we recommend you review the email addresses you have and ensure you can manage them.  

Like unused apps (check out yesterday’s post!), you should delete the addresses you don’t use. This is because your email accounts are another way spammers can target you with their phishing attempts. The fewer accounts you have, the better.   

Other than your work account(s), it’s worth having a personal email address that doesn’t give away your identity. With the proliferation of social media, it’s easier than ever for scammers to mine the Internet for personal information about you and create eerily realistic phishing scams that land in your inbox.  

So, create a free email address with random words and numbers such as DogLover1920@emailprovider.com . This will help protect you if your account is lost or shared.  It will also make it much harder to target you than someone with an email address such as firstname.lastname@emailprovider.com   

Action: 

Review your email accounts. Create an email address which doesn’t include any personal information.