Email woes gotcha worried? How to fix problems and fend off attacks
Email is one of those tools people keep saying will one day die and be replaced with a better communication platform. And yet, because it is nearly universal and works across platforms so well, it's still here.
But working across platforms is not the same as working well for everyone all the time. I've seen a lot of concern about the rising number of email-based attacks and a lot of complaints from people having email trouble in general — with many blaming Outlook or some other client for recent problems.
In fact, the underlying cause might be more straightforward: ISPs have been moving to more modern authentication processes (to fend off attacks) and some email clients can't handle the changes. Case in point: Microsoft, which is slowly but surely disabling basic authentication and moving to better levels of protection. (If your mail platform still uses basic authentication, attackers are almost certainly trying to crack your passwords with password spraying and harvested credentials.)