The following tips apply for your workstations both at home and at your place of work/study.

13 October 2008 (rev 4)

Links: Staff email (Outlook Web Access) • Student email (WebMail/SurgeMail)

1. Common sense tips

It is Good Practice to have at least three different personal e-mail addresses (or mailboxes, strictly speaking)—one for work/study, one for family and friends, and finally a ‘disposable’ or ‘sacrificial lamb’ one via some ISP service for use when corresponding with people whom you do not know.
Spammers have an armoury of automated techniques for harvesting e-mail addresses to augment already huge so-called Spam-Lists. Therefore, always try to avoid disclosing your e-mail address on newsgroups, on chat-channels (IRC), on web pages, etc. One clumsy but effective approach is to write your e-address in a human-readable but otherwise very-difficult-to-harvest format—Joe stad Soap at CS stad UCC stad IE or perhaps joeDOTsoapATcsDOTuccDOTie.

Another trick-of-the-trade is to insert a tiny .GIF or .JPEG file containing a picture of your email address!

Avoid activating the automatic reply function in your e-mail client software—it only confirms to spammers that your e-mail-address is in use.
Remember to download the free updates for your operating system over the Internet as often as possible in order to close new security holes etc.

Keep up to date via relevant Internet websites. It pays to learn about the workings of spam, viruses and suchlike e-mail-related issues. Also, learn about the different file types so as to be aware of what email attachments are and aren't advisable to open.
Learn how to use a firewall to protect your home workstation against Internet intruders.

2. Tips about incoming messages that you may be about to read

Learn how to make use of the available spam and virus-filtering features, both on your own PC and via your Internet Service Provider.
Avoid using the preview function for incoming e-mails. (It's a long story, just trust me on this one.)
Always be ruthless if you receive an e-mail message with a suspicious-looking attachment. Delete any such e-mail immediately. Don't worry—the world will still continue to revolve even if you accidentally delete the occasional valid message in the process! See Keep up to date via relevant Internet websites. It pays to learn about the workings of spam, viruses and suchlike e-mail-related issues. Also, learn about the different file types so as to be aware of what email attachments are and aren't advisable to open. above.

Do not broadcast the e-mail addresses of your friends. Use the Blind Carbon Copy function (Bcc:) to hide the receiver addresses when you send an e-mail message to multiple recipients.
Never ever use those various birthday greeting services for sending cute, clever, funny ‘cards’ to your friends. Both your address and theirs will almost certainly be added to a spam-list. Nobody deserves that kind of friend! Also, stop and think before signing up to shopping-related mailing lists or even completing online ‘surveys’ that ask for your e-mail address.
Only people with a single-digit IQ level would bother to forward a chain letter to everybody they know. Right? Well, not entirely. In fact, a surprisingly high number of otherwise rational people often make complete idiots of themselves by doing just that! Do yourself a favour—always bin the chain letters.

Never ever reply to the ‘Click here to Unsubscribe’ offer that frequently appears in spams. By replying, you confirm that your e-mail account is active. See Avoid activating the automatic reply function in your e-mail client software—it only confirms to spammers that your e-mail-address is in use. above also!
Beware of making any purchases on the basis of something you've learned about via a bulk e-mail message. That is how spammers earn their living. Responding to spam generates ever more spam.
Vendors who adopt semi-legal spamming strategies to advertise their wares probably are not likely to strictly adhere to ethical business standards. So—caveat emptor. Just keep on repeating to yourself those old sayings about ‘A fool and his money are soon parted’ or ‘There's one born every minute’ etc.