Email Communication Technique Report

Email Communication Technique Report

The overview of this report is to explain about different Email Communication Techniques that ‘In The Know’ Board Of Directors clients might use or that they don't know about. I will be explaining about what viruses and phishing do to computers, I will be giving advice on how to protect yourself from phishing and viruses. Finally I will be explaining about dangers of Email, especially an Email virus called Sobig.F. My objective and aims is to teach the clients all about carbon copy, blind carbon copy, virus, phishing, spam filter and high-importance. I’m going to achieve in this report is that the clients will understand about Email Communication Techniques.

The first useful Email communication technique which I will be explaining is high-importance. A High importance email is just like a normal email; however there is something slightly different about it. When you receive a high importance email it will have a noticeable stamp or a red exclamation mark. The reason why they use a stamp or a red exclamation mark is to grab the receiver’s attention straight away before anything else. This lets the receiver know that they should pay extra special attention to the content of the email because it's important to the sender or it contains important information that the receiver needs to read. However, there is one thing that you need to remember about high importance emails. That is that anyone can designate their mail as 'highly important'. Recently I found out from research that a lot of spammers and hackers have designated their spam-mails as being 'high- importance'. The reason why spammers and hackers would do this is to try and attract attention from the receiver, if the receiver opens these emails which have 'high-importance' but they are from spammers or hackers then these emails could contain some form of virus. I will be explaining more in detail about a virus later on in this report. To check if the email contains any virus then I would recommend you scan the email first to see whether there is any virus present in the email. The 'high-importance' email will appear in the recipient's inbox with an exclamation mark beside the sender's name and email subject line. This will flag the email as important, and might encourage the recipient to open the message before the lower priority emails are waiting in your inbox. Another reason why people would use 'high-importance' emails is if a sender has sent an inappropriate message either containing violent conduct, inappropriate language and sexual language. If a sender has sent an email containing any of these then the email will have a 'high importance' exclamation mark on it. This is to attract the receiver that someone has sent them something that is inappropriate. You can set up high importance very easily. Overall I think that 'high-importance' is very important when it comes to emails, whether it's to attract the receiver with important information or to stop people using inappropriate language. I hope the board of directors understand what 'high-importance' is and I hope your clients start using this form of email communication technique.

The final two email communication techniques which I will be explaining about is both 'CC' and 'BCC'. 'CC' and 'BCC' may seem similar however they are very different. Sometimes you might have an email message that you need to send to lots of people like an important email, there are three ways of sending an email to more than one person, and they are common to most emails. You can put all the addresses in the ‘To’ field, or you can use one or both of the ‘Cc and ‘BCC’ fields.  'CC' literally means 'Carbon Copy'. 'Carbon Copy' means that you can type an email address in a line; the receiver will receive a copy of the email you are sending to them. If you want a client to see an email but don’t really expect a reply, you can use the ‘CC’ field. If you want a reply you put their address in the ‘To’ field. 

'BCC' is very different to 'CC', 'BCC' means 'Blind Carbon Copy'. Blind Carbon Copy means that if you type an address in the BCC line, that person will receive a copy of the email you are sending but their email address will not show to the others who received the email. This is a big contrast to the 'CC' whose addresses do appear in the respective header lines. Every recipient of the message can see all the 'CC' recipients, but does not know about 'BCC' recipients. Here is a diagram of both the 'Carbon Copy' and 'Blind Carbon Copy'.

Here is both 'CC' and 'BCC' being
used.

The ‘BCC’ field is really useful for protecting people's and clients privacy and preventing their email address being forwarded around the Internet and misused. Just like the 'Carbon Copy'. Using 'CC' and 'BCC' is effective when writing an email, so overall I think that 'CC and BCC' is very important when it comes to emails, whether you’re sending an email and you don't want your email address on it or that someone gets a copy of your email. I hope the board of directors of ‘In The Know’ understand what 'CC and BCC' is, you know a little more information about both the technique and I hope your clients start using this form of email communication technique in the near future.

This is an Anit-Virus Program.

Next, I will be giving you advice on how to notice and protect yourself from phishing and viruses. If you don't know what viruses or phishing are, then I will be giving you a full explanation on what they mean. The definition of what a virus is, is something that will harm and affect your computer; all your data could be harmed on your computer, it could be link to an email you have received or from computer pop ups. A virus can spread from computer to computer if you are not careful. Malware includes computer viruses, computer worms, Trojan horses, and other malicious software. The majority of active malware threats are usually trojans or worms rather than viruses. You will know if a virus has affected your computer by the speed being slower than usually, programmes will either stop working or they won't open up properly or that data files have either been corrupted or files have been lost. A virus may be harmful and affect your computer however you can get software that will stop these viruses from getting to your computer. Here are some examples of the top two anti-virus protection programmes;

These programs will scan your computer to see if there are any viruses present on your computer. If there are any viruses then it will remove them from your computer. I would advise the board of directors to invest in an anti-virus software program. When you install this program onto your computers it you tell you if you have a virus present. The way in which it will do that is there will be a message that pops up informing you, or at the bottom of your computer there will be a red exclamation mark, this symbol will inform you that something is wrong. There has been a dangerous virus that has affected many companies over the last couple of years, this virus is called Sobig.F. The Sobig was a computer worm that infected millions of Internet-connected, Microsoft Windows computers, this all happened in august 2003. It is and still is the biggest virus of all time. This virus intercepted more than a million copies of Sobig.F in the space of 24 hours. The Sobig.F virus is contracted by opening the attachment it carries that is labelled to make people think it is an innocent screensaver or configuration file. The virus tries to fool people into opening it by regularly changing its subject line and the name of the attachment.  This had a major impact in businesses all around the world because people’s businesses won’t run properly due to this virus. This would make it very hard to open up any emails for businesses.

Phishing is very different from a virus. The definition of phishing is that it is an email convincing you to send personal details with the intention of robbing you of something. Typically, they would send an email that looks as if it is from a company or organisation; however it contains a link to a fake website which people mislead into being the real site. By this the fake website could obtain passwords, credit card numbers or other personal information. Here is a perfect example of phishing being used;

There are a number of reasons why this is a phishing email. The first reason why this is a phishing email is the use of 3 exclamation marks next to the attention. No bank email would use the word attention with 4 exclamation marks. The reason why they have used this is to try and grab the receiver’s attention, also they sound desperate to try and get the receivers attention. The second reason why this is a phishing email is at the beginning of any email they use the receiver’s last name or first name; however in this email they use 'Dear Client'. This makes this email very unprofessional and I would be weary of the email. When you open this email I would scan it first to see if there are any viruses present on the email. Unfortunately there is no tool to stop phishing emails going to people because their aim is to try and fool people but you can use your common sense when dealing with phishing emails. Firstly before anything else look at who sent you the email; if the person who sent you the email is someone you don't know then instantly send the email to your junk folder, this will delete the email from even being read. I would advise you not to look at the email if you don't know who the sender is because it could contain inappropriate subjects or it could contain viruses. I hope you clients of the board of directors are more familiar with viruses and phishing and you know how to hardly any of these problems if you are faced with them in the near future. 

My aims and objectives in this report was to make the board of directors clearer with the knowledge of Email and to get the clients familiar with Email viruses and phishing Emails. I feel that in my report that I have achieved that.  My main objective was to teach the clients about CC, BCC, Spam filters and high importance and I hope that you will use the Email techniques that I have discussed in the near future.