My email address is [CENSORED]

In this week's column, Davey Winder looks at whether businesses should keep email addresses secret.

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Phishing

Demonising social networks is not the answer, however, and is reminiscent of how the internet itself was treated with suspicion by the business world 15 or 20 years back. I could drag out any amount of research statistics ad nauseam to show that the internet can be a dangerous place for your business to be (malware, fraud, viruses, brand damage, yada yada yada) but if I suggested you told your staff not to use the internet on pain of death, I would quite rightly be thought of as idiotic.

Not that I'm suggesting Websense or Mr Leonard are idiotic, I hasten to add, just that in this particular case I think some of the advice being given is misguided. Which is a shame as some of the advice is worthy of following, such as "treat emails from friends linking you to other sites with caution" and "never use passwords that can be inferred from publicly accessible information." But, seriously, please don't tell me that my email address should be kept secret...

Davey Winder
Davey Winder

Davey is a three-decade veteran technology journalist specialising in cybersecurity and privacy matters and has been a Contributing Editor at PC Pro magazine since the first issue was published in 1994. He's also a Senior Contributor at Forbes, and co-founder of the Forbes Straight Talking Cyber video project that won the ‘Most Educational Content’ category at the 2021 European Cybersecurity Blogger Awards.

Davey has also picked up many other awards over the years, including the Security Serious ‘Cyber Writer of the Year’ title in 2020. As well as being the only three-time winner of the BT Security Journalist of the Year award (2006, 2008, 2010) Davey was also named BT Technology Journalist of the Year in 1996 for a forward-looking feature in PC Pro Magazine called ‘Threats to the Internet.’ In 2011 he was honoured with the Enigma Award for a lifetime contribution to IT security journalism which, thankfully, didn’t end his ongoing contributions - or his life for that matter.

You can follow Davey on Twitter @happygeek, or email him at davey@happygeek.com.

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