What is email, its types, uses, advantages and disadvantages

In the olden times, letters were used to send any information or message to anyone, in which there was a waste of time, postal expenses and fear of losing the letter, so today instead of using letters, email is being used.

Today, with the development of technology, email is used to send any information or message to anyone. For sending information or messages by email, neither you have to pay any cost, much time is wasted, nor there is any fear of losing it.

Perhaps you have also used email to send a message to someone. If you do not know what email is, then today in this article we will tell you all the things related to email and also tell you what are the differences between Email and Gmail.

what are emails

The full name of the Email is Electronic Mail. As its name suggests, any information or message that is sent through electronic means is called email.

Email is one of the most used facilities for electronic communication. Email is transmitted through email servers using a number of protocols within TCP or IP.

For example, SMTP is a protocol that stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and is used for sending messages. While other protocols like IMP or POP are used to receive the message from the mail server.

Email history

Email is much older than the Internet. In the beginning, email was just a small advance of what is nowadays known as a file directory.

It was used only to send a message to the directory of other users where they could log in and see this information.

The mailbox was used at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Which was the first email system in 1965. When the work of the Internet had not started, then users could send information through email to many users of one computer.

Later in 1972, Ray Tomlinson invented email to overcome some of the difficulties. He used @ to represent information from one computer to another and then with the help of Internet Standard it became easy to send information to another.

Offline readers were one of the first new developments when personal computers appeared. Email users started storing their emails on their personal computers with the help of Offline Reader and were able to read them. SMTP was the first email standard that is still in use. Email address fraud was and still is very easy.

Although the World Wide Web provides many services, email is the most commonly used facility.

Internet Service Providers had started connecting people all over the world by the 1980s. Also, by 1993, the use of the Internet was becoming widespread.

Today many people using email for communication are constantly getting updated in the system. More than 600 million people use email internationally.

components of email

Following are some of the important components of email.

1. Label

The email begins with a ‘from’ label. Everyone cares about where the email came from? When a person scans his inbox, it appears first. It helps to read e-mail easily.

2. Subject

In this line we get to know what is the email about? When an email arrives in the Inbox, we decide whether to open it or not by looking at its subject.

3. Pre Header

Pre Header is like a SideKick of a subject line. This is the first line of your email. Some email programs such as Gmail or mobile phones include a preheader after the subject line so that the reader can get a little more information before opening the email.

4. Email Body

This is the main part of the email that comes after the Pre Header. In better emails, email bodies are short and add more information to the attached file or document.

5. End

This is the last part of the email. In this, words like thank you, talk to you soon and see you later are used.

Email in modern times supports HTML. Emails that support HTML can contain links, photos, CSS, layouts, and file or image attachments can also be sent along with the message.

Email type

There are many types of e-mail which are as follows.

Marketing Email

The main purpose of such emails is advertising. Marketing email is used for the purpose of encouraging a customer to make a purchase. Apart from this, marketing emails are also used to build relationships with customers, educate customers, etc.

Welcome Email

Often you must have seen that whenever you log in to any application or website, you get an email, the same email is Welcome Email. In this, apart from congratulating new users, instructions are given to new people to use the service.

Special Email

These types of emails promise a discount or prize. Such images encourage customers to make a purchase as soon as possible.

For example, if you have created your account on Amazon, then you can get an email to tell you about any kind of Discount or Sell on Amazon.

Advertisement Email

This is the most common type of email used to inform you about new products or services. It provides some important benefits to the users like free month service, percentage discount, etc.

Onboarding Email

Onboarding Email is also called Post Sell Email. This email is received by the users just after the subscription. In the onboarding email, buyers are told about how to use an item properly.

E-mail access

E-mail can be used in the following ways:

• It can be used to communicate within an organization or company or individually between two people or a large group of people.
• E-mail is used to communicate with other people, and send and receive photos, documents, links, etc.

benefits of e-mail

There are many advantages of e-mail which are as follows.

• Email is a very cost-effective service for communicating with others as there are many email services available for individuals and organizations for free. Once a user is online, there is no cost for the services.
• Email provides users with the advantage of accessing mail and email from anywhere at any time if they have internet connections.
• E-mails can be created very easily with the right information. Apart from this, it can be changed quickly in less time.
• With the help of e-mail, you can easily send messages to a large number of people.
• Email provides a simple user interface and enables users to categorize and filter their messages.
• E-mail helps you identify unwanted mail such as Junk and Spam mail.
• E-mail is paperless, which reduces the cost of paper and also helps in saving the environment by reducing the use of paper.
• Also, email is beneficial for advertising products. Since email is a form of communication, organizations or companies can interact with a large number of people and convey information to them in a short amount of time.

Disadvantages of email

• E-mail is one of the common ways for a device to be infected with a virus. For example sometimes when you get a mail it may have come with a virus attached to the e-mail and when you click on the link and open the link the virus may affect your system. Huh.
• There are many hackers who want to get your important information. Therefore email is not a good source for receiving sensitive data such as political, financial, document, or personal messages. There have been several high-profile cases in recent times that have shown how insecure emails are.
• With e-mail, you can make mistakes by clicking the wrong buttons in haste. For example, instead of sending an email to a single person, you may accidentally send sensitive data to a large group of people. Hence it can be harmful and can create major problems in the workplace.
• Although the features of email have been improved in recent times. Yet there are still major problems with spam through email.
• Emails are less personal than other communications. That’s why talking on the phone is more suitable for communication than e-mail.
• Emails contain only text, there is no body language, so misunderstandings can easily happen with email.
• It is very easy to send email to too many people at once which can cause information overload. This is a big problem in many workplaces.

What can be sent in an email

It is possible to send an email by attaching any file stored in the computer like PHOTO, TEXT, DOCUMENTS, VIDEOS etc.

However, due to some security issues, it may not be possible to send certain types of files over email.

For example .exe files may be blocked by many companies from being sent over email and you will need to convert the file to .zip. Apart from this, you cannot send any large file or program over email.

Examples of Email Attacks

Email Attacks include Spoofing, Spamming, Spear Fishing, Fishing, Business Image Compromise (BEC), and Ransomware. Several companies are hit by a BEC attack every month as one in every 412 malware attacks.

Spearfishing is the most commonly used Infection Vector according to Symantec Internet Threat Security Report. Full details of these types of attacks are given below.

Phishing

Usually, this is done via email. Phishing emails are used by attackers to steal sensitive data such as credit card and login information or to install malware.

Everyone should learn about phishing attacks to protect themselves as it is a common type of cyber attack. Common features of phishing emails are a Sense of Agency, Hyperlinks, etc.

Spamming

Spam has been a problem faced by most email users since the 1990s and it continues to grow. ‌Usually, an email is sent by the Spammer to millions of email addresses with the expectation that only a small number of email addresses will respond or interact with the message.

Spoofing

Email spoofing is a popular strategy used in spam and phishing. Email Spoofing is used to trick the recipient of the mail into the opening and replying to the email.

Ransomware

It is a subset of malware that is used to encrypt files. Usually, it locks the data by encryption on the system and demands money to decrypt the data.

Business Image Compromise (BEC)

In BEC, attackers hack an email account. Often an attacker creates an account with only one email address. Which is almost the same on Corporate Network. Sometimes this is also known as  Man In The Email Attack.

How to avoid email attack

There are many techniques using which you can prevent loss of email communication and sensitive data of accounts.

• You can protect your account by creating a strong password and changing your password frequently. Alphabetical, numerical, and special symbols can be used to create strong passwords that can help protect your account.
• You can run Antivirus and Antimalware software on your computer. Also, you can create a Spam Filter and Folder to separate Junk Mail.
• Apart from this, you can implement Email Security Gateway. Email Security Gateways scan all received emails, check them, and find out whether the email should be allowed in the system or not.

Rules for creating Email Address

To create an email address, it is necessary to follow the various rules given below.

• In the email address, the user’s name comes before @ and the domain name comes after @.
• An email should contain only one @ symbol.
• E-mail address does not contain Space and Special Symbol.