Spam mail

Zoom is a video conferencing app. Zoom Bombing is a cyber-attack on your video call where an individual or a group of people enter the call without the permission of the host. These individuals then display offensive or explicit images in order to cause distress to the recipients.

Video conferencing helps many people work remotely and allows us to stay in touch with our families and friends. Unfortunately as worldwide use of video conferencing continues to increase, so has the volume of cyber-attacks.

The links in Related Information provide details of how to secure your Zoom meeting and prevent unwanted people joining.

If you have experienced Zoom Bombing, this can be reported to Zoom and depending on the nature of the content, your local police force.

Phishing is a cyber crime where criminals contact people by email, telephone or text message, pretending to be a legitimate organisation. They try to get people to provide personal information such as bank details and passwords, and often include links that once clicked, download a virus to your computer and steal personal information. The information is then used to access accounts and can result in identity theft and financial loss.

Be aware of suspicious messages and emails and do not click on links or attachments in them. Never respond to unsolicited messages that ask for your personal or financial details.

If you do receive a suspicious email, this can be reported to National Cyber Security Centre via their Suspicious Email Reporting Service (SERS) Any suspected frauds committed by email can be send to Action Fraud. See Q680 and Q749 for further information regarding fraud and see the links in Related Information to report any suspicious or fraudulent emails.

Spam email is unsolicited and unwarranted junk email that is usually sent out in bulk to a recipient list for the purpose of selling the recipient goods or services such as; multi-level marketing schemes, get-rich-quick schemes, work at home schemes or questionable products.

Spammers have developed software that trawls web pages looking for any text that contains the @ symbol as it is assumed to be an email address. The software lifts the content and later uses it for mass spam emailing.

Spam software can give the impression that the email is in reply to something you have sent by having a subject line starting with RE: or it can appear to be from a named person, for example John Smith. You are more likely to open one of these e-mails but if you not recognise the e-mail address, DO NOT open the e-mail as this could infect your computer with a virus.

These emails are often from scammers trying to steal your identity by gaining access to your personal information in order to steal money and is known as 'phishing'. For more information on this and please see the website in related information.

Yes, protect your email address. Only distribute your e-mail address to those people who you wish to have it and change your password regularly.

If you do find yourself receiving a high volume of unsolicited e-mails, you can contact your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to block future e-mails from the sender. Alternatively, most email providers allow you to do this yourself from a computer or mobile device.

It is important to report scammers as it can help you and thousands of other people. Once an ISP has reason to believe their network is being used to send unlawful unsolicited e-mail, they can block all further e-mail sent to its users from the address or domain name of the sender.

Never reply to 'spammers ', and never buy anything from them.

Educate yourself about filtering. E-mail programs such as Microsoft Outlook have filtering features that allow you to set criteria to stop unwanted e-mail before it reaches your inbox, or once it does, move it to the trash folder where you can delete it without reading it.

The Internet Watch Foundation and the BBC have some information on steps that can be taken to reduce and safeguard against spam mail, see websites in related information.

The best way to stop spam e-mails is to protect your e-mail address and only give it out to those people you wish to receive e-mails from.

You can contact your Internet Service Provider (ISP) who may be able to block any future messages from the sender. Alternatively, most providers allow you to block the sender from your email account via a computer or mobile device.

If the sender persistently sends spam mail, the ISP may be able to block all future e-mails from this person.