Why do I get so many spam emails from my website?
“Why do I get so many spam emails from my website?” is this familiar to you? Since the bloom of the digital world, people have always tried to make money online, and sadly, not all of these people have good intentions. There are a lot of “get rich quick” schemes on the internet, and a lot of people trying to scam people.
Not that we are saying all spam is harmful and bad, there certainly are some companies or people that are just trying to make sales, but unfortunately, it is becoming ever more difficult to distinguish between which is which, and, dare we say it… Sometimes spam is just plain irritating. Can you relate to the following statement? “I get so frustrated sometimes when I am working and suddenly get an inquiry from the website, hoping to make a new sale, and it is Jane Doe with her broken English telling me that my products can sell so much better if I click on this link to view the strategy…. I do not sell products on my website Jane, so no thanks, I am not going to click on your link.”
So why did “Jane” send me that message?
A lot of these “Janes” use bots to constantly crawl the internet in search of unprotected websites and contact forms. Once they have found your website or unprotected form, they will keep pushing entries through that form. They often use different email addresses and IP addresses so this makes it difficult to just block the IP or email address.
In more serious cases, once they have your mailbox they might “Bomb” you with emails, but their real target is more sinister and much more severe. They will send out a huge amount of emails to keep you busy while they launch an attack on your server, website, or even banking. This way they hope that the actual attack slips through the cracks of all the emails.
It is very important to never open any attachment that you receive from an unknown email address. If you are unsure about whether or not an email is legit, take a look at the domain name, and search for the website, chances are they won’t have a website, but in most cases, you will be able to see that it is spam by just looking at the domain. For example, I have recently received an email from a “John” with the following email address: egorn8v@list.ra and at first glance, I know that this is not a legit email address.
What to do if you Identify a spam email?
If you know that an email is a spam, the best solution is to delete it immediately. Do not reply, and most importantly, DO NOT OPEN ANY ATTACHMENTS! Guys and Gals, this is super important, do not open the attachment, I know you are curious, but that attachment can be a malware program developed to infect your computer as soon as you open it. In most cases when such malware infects your computer it can spread to your entire network.
How do I stop getting these spam emails?
Once you are being targeted by these “Janes” and “Johns” the best you can do is add proper security to your website. Make sure that you have a trustworthy SSL certificate installed on your domain, this will encrypt communication between the server and client.
You should also make use of some form of security like “ReCaptcha” this is developed by Google and is the famous “I’m not a Robot” tickbox.
This works really well and can keep your form safe from unwanted submissions. You can also talk to your hosting provider to block some traffic such as international traffic if you only sell locally, but obviously, this won’t work if you need international traffic, and a quick VPN location change will give the spammers access again.
Ask your developer.
Now, the above mentioned can be overwhelming if you do not have any experience on the topic, however, it is important to educate yourself on the Online World if you wish to show up in the Online World… Luckily, you can simply ask your developer to implement security strategies into the website to ensure you do not receive unwanted spamming.
