How
Email Works?
v Email sending and receiving
is controlled by the Email servers. All Email service providers configure Email
Server before anyone can Sign into his or her account and start communicating
digitally.
v Once the servers are ready to
go, users from across the world register in to these Email servers and setup an
Email account. When they have a fully working Email account, they sign into
their accounts and start connecting to other users using the Email services.
Email
Travelling Path
v Let’s say we have two Email
providers, one is Server1.com and other is Server2.in, ABC is a registered user
in Server1.com and XYZ is a registered user in Server2.in.
v ABC signs in to his Email
account in Server1.com, he then writes a mail to the xyz@server2.in and click
on Send and gets the message that the Email is sent successfully.
v But what happens behind the
curtains, the Email from the computer of abc@server1.com is forwarded to the
Email server of Server1.com. Server1 then looks for server2.in on the internet
and forwards the Email of the server2.in for the account of XYZ. Server2.in
receives the Email from server1.com and puts it in the account of XYZ.
v XYZ
then sits on computer and signs in to her Email account. Now she has the
message in her Email inbox.
Email
Service Protocols
SMTP
ü SMTP stands for Simple Mail
Transfer Protocol. SMTP is used when Email is delivered from an Email client,
such as Outlook Express, to an Email server or when Email is delivered from one
Email server to another. SMTP uses port 25.
POP3
ü POP3 stands for Post Office
Protocol. POP3 allows an Email client to download an Email from an Email
server. The POP3 protocol is simple and does not offer many features except for
download. Its design assumes that the Email
client downloads all available Email from the server,
deletes them from the server and then disconnects. POP3 normally uses port 110.
IMAP
ü IMAP stands for Internet
Message Access Protocol. IMAP shares many similar features with POP3. It, too,
is a protocol that an Email client can use to download Email from an Email
server. However, IMAP includes many more features than POP3. The IMAP protocol
is designed to let users keep their Email on the server. IMAP requires more
disk space on the server and more CPU resources than POP3, as all Emails are
stored on the server. IMAP normally uses port 143.
Configuring
an Email Server
v Email server software like
Post cast Server, Hmailserver, Surge mail, etc can be used to convert your
Desktop PC into an Email sending server.
v HMailServer is an Email
server for Microsoft Windows. It allows you to handle all your Email yourself
without having to rely on an Internet service provider (ISP) to manage it.
Compared to letting your ISP host your Email,
HMailServer adds flexibility and security and gives you
the full control over spam protection.
Email
Security
v Now let’s check how secure
this fast mean of communication is. There are so many attacks which are applied
on Emails. There are people who are the masters of these Email attacks and they
always look for the innocent people who are not aware of these Email tricks and
ready to get caught their trap.
v You have to make sure that
you are not an easy target for those people. You have to secure your Email
identity and profile, make yourself a tough target.
v If you have an Email Id Do
not feel that it does not matters if hacked because there is no important
information in that Email account, because you do not know if someone gets your
Email id password and uses your Email to send a threatening Email to the
Ministry or to the News Channels.
v Attacker is not bothered
about your data in the Email. He just wants an Email ID Victim which will be
used in the attack. There are a lots of ways by which one can use your Email in
wrong means, i am sure that you would have come across some of the cased where
a student gets an Email from his friends abusing him or cases on PornEmails
where the owner of the Email does not anything about the sent Email.
