Don’t Be the Victim of an Email Bomb! Here’s What You Need to Know

An electronic mail bomb is a Denial-of-Service (DoS) assault designed to overwhelm an inbox or inhibit a server by sending an extreme quantity of emails to an particular person or firm. This prevents you from conducting enterprise and causes main harm to your organization’s status and income.


Here’s what you want to find out about this manner of assault and the way to cease it from occurring to you.


What Is an Email Bomb?

When an inbox is bombarded with masses of pointless messages in a bid to trigger a DOS notice, it has suffered an electronic mail bomb.

Often known as a letter bomb, the cyberattack can be utilized as a ruse to distract the proprietor of the electronic mail deal with from notifications detailing fraudulent exercise. This assault can drown your inbox in 1000’s of emails from subscriptions you by no means signed up for or emails with giant attachments, in the end main to the collapse of the server.

Even worse, you could be wrongly tagged as spam, severely limiting you and your group’s attain. Email bombs can take totally different types, however all have one singular purpose—to render your account or server inoperable.

How Does an Email Bomb Work?

Email bombs refill your inbox with numerous messages in a brief interval, main to downtime or outright shutdown of the account. A single malicious attacker or an organized group of bots on compromised programs are the typical perpetrators of an electronic mail assault.

Email Bombs Attack Using a Singular or Similar Domain

Spam signs warnings

Many victims of electronic mail bomb assaults report receiving many emails from one or related domains. The emails despatched from these sketchy addresses normally comprise giant volumes of nonsensical texts or zipped attachments which may be malware in disguise.

Most spam filters are in a position to cease this assault, however there are even sneakier methods you may fall sufferer to an electronic mail bomb assault.

Email Bombs Attack Using Benign Sites

Anti-malware has been improved to detect and filter problematic entities. But that is meant that attackers have gotten smarter too.

They bypass spam filters by enlisting the use of reliable websites and types to bombard your electronic mail account. You’re instantly overwhelmed by numerous welcome messages and newsletters signing you up on totally different platforms and newsletters. Since they’re all from benign web sites, they aren’t flagged as spam. Hence, the bomb.

What Are the Different Types of Email Bomb Attacks?

Email bomb assaults can current in some ways, and figuring out how to determine them is a kind of safety in itself. Some sorts of electronic mail bombing could also be unintentional, a mere mistake, however one that may be prevented nonetheless.

1. Mass Mailing

sending messages around the world

Mass Mailing, as the title implies, means sending emails to many electronic mail addresses directly. This places you in danger of being flagged as spam and reduces your attain.

Email bombers worming their method into your account can piggyback and ship spam emails via your account to a number of recipients if protecting measures aren’t applied.

2. List Linking

Email bombers signal you up for 1000’s of subscriptions right here, flooding your inbox with one million messages in the blink of an eye!

The websites are principally reliable, so spam filters normally have problem screening these out.

3. Large Attachments

Bombarding a goal account with a number of messages containing giant attachments—sufficient to decelerate or negatively impression server efficiency—is a kind of electronic mail bombing. When the server’s storage is overwhelmed, it’s only a matter of time earlier than it freezes up and stops responding.

4. Decompression Bomb

A decompression bomb is the place a compressed or zipped file containing malicious software program is shipped to a goal account. Upon decompression, the sufferer could encounter service downtime and even account deactivation.

Some compressed information have been found to contain ransomware, so it’s best to get rid of such information with out trying decompression.

How to Avoid Becoming a Target for Email Bombs

So how are you going to defend your self from nasty electronic mail bomb assaults?

1. Keep Your Business and Personal Email Addresses Separate

Envelopes with gmail logo flying out of laptop

Having a separate electronic mail for work is necessary for minimizing your danger of publicity to bomb assaults. Ensure you utilize your online business electronic mail solely in work-related situations.

Securing all your email addresses with multi-factor authentication is an effective security transfer too. Beyond organising safety in your electronic mail accounts, keep away from sharing your electronic mail as plain textual content on-line or on web sites with insufficient safety.

2. Engage Restrictions on Your Email Account

Some restrictions can block additional entry of messages from a selected sender as soon as it crosses a set restrict inside a timeframe.

Several third-party functions supply a variety of restrictions to assist safe your account. You may have your electronic mail server administrator block messages with attachments infamous for being malware. These embody attachments with the tags, .zip, .exe, and many others.

Restrictions of this sort assist you to keep away from electronic mail bombs.

3. Use CAPTCHA to Screen Out Bots from Your Forms

CAPTCHA Example

If your online business requires you to have interaction individuals utilizing types, it is best to defend your account from manipulative bots.

You can do that by creating and including CAPTCHA as the closing step to stop bots from accessing your servers and inbox by extension.

4. Protect Your Account by Using Bulk Mail and Spam Filters

By adjusting settings in your electronic mail account, you may create transport guidelines that seek for key phrases you counsel are typical of bulk mail.

Most emailing choices supply restricted safety from bulk and spam emails, however you may enlist the providers of third-party bulk and spam mail filters. They are sometimes designed to permit customization.

Email bombs can range from costly pranks to business-crippling catastrophes in worst-case situations. Knowing how to defend your self in opposition to them will go a great distance to stop you from falling sufferer to cybercriminals.

Protect Yourself from an Email Bomb

Email bombing is a kind of cyberattack that anybody with the proper abilities can perpetuate. It is troublesome to discover a definitive method to keep away from an electronic mail bomb. However, it is usually greatest not to click on any hyperlinks or open attachments from unknown sources.

If you obtain an electronic mail bomb, report it instantly. You also needs to notify your web service supplier and see if they’ve any options or options for shielding your self from future assaults.

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