Step One: Your first action when examining an email should be to check its subject line. Spammers try their best to make their emails look legitimate, yet an email's heading often betrays its true motive. Come-ons for things like herbal medicines and home-equity loans are usually quite easy to spot, since they often have hyperbolic headings like "Incredible Bargain," "Special Report," or "Limited Offer." Phishing messages can usually be identified by headings such as "Immediate Action Required" or "Verify Your Account." All of these emails can be erased with no regret.

Any messages without a heading should also be checked out more thoroughly, since it may be either spam or a genuinely important letter that was sent in haste.

Step Two: An email's "from" line can provide significant clues about a message's worthiness. You already know the names of people you regularly correspond with, so it's easy to spot messages from these individuals. On the other hand, emails with a from line that contains only a company name are almost always spam or phishing lures. To research any message's legitimacy, check out the email's return path to verify that it leads back to the person or organization that it purports to come from.

The trickiest emails to decipher are the ones sent by total strangers, who may be spammers or individuals posing a genuine business question or offer. The only method of determining the legitimacy of these messages is to investigate still further.

Step Three: The dates can sometimes provide a clue to an email's value, and take less than a second to check. If a message with a far past or future date suddenly arrives, it's more than likely from a spammer seeking attention.

Step Four: If you're still not sure about a particular message's authenticity, examine its content. If an email addresses you as a "friend," "valued customer," or "colleague," you can be sure that its sender doesn't know your name.

Poor grammar, bad spelling and awkward, non-native use of English are other signs that should arouse your attention. Also look for Web links that lead to suspicious sites (such as a message from someone supposedly at Acme Co. that contains a link leading to a non-Acme Co. site). Con artists also often use URLs that resemble the name of a well-known company but are slightly altered by adding, omitting or transposing letters.

Step Five: Never open an attachment unless you know who sent it, or at least understand why it was sent to you.

For more information, please click here to be redirected IT Security's website on this topic written by John Edwards.