With your hosting package comes at least one email account. These email accounts are extremely vulnerable to all forms of internet crime, from identity theft to system sabotage. Phishing: Phishing is when an email in your inbox seems to be from a company you know and trust (like a store you do business with online, or a financial institution, or your hosting service), requesting innocently enough that you follow a link to their site where you'll be prompted to update your personal data. The link takes you to a page almost identical to the corresponding page on the actual company's site. If you or hosting company don't catch on in time, you could be giving a fraudster all they need to fleece you clean: credit card numbers, passwords, etc. Lucky for us, a large number of hosting companies include with their hosting packages the technology to identify schemes like this and keep you from ever having to deal with them.

Viruses: Another way criminals can use your email to get at you is by infecting your system with viruses via email attachments. Most computer owners have encountered viruses at one point or another, and fortunately most hosting companies offer some sort of virus blocker as part of their hosting packages. If the hosting company additionally offers you a firewall, even better. As well, many hosting companies are scanning all attachments coming through their system for viruses. For maximum peace of mind, they should also be updating their database regularly with every new viruses as it's discovered. Spam: Who hasn't heard of spam? Your hosting company sure has, and if you don't think their grossly affected by it, think again! It boggles the mind that so many companies still think these relentless, impersonal, mass emailings will win customers over to them. Most hosting companies know how much you hate spam, and are committed to helping you to combat it. Many hosting companies now use spam filters to isolate emails that, for one reason or another, send up a red flag: be it because the sender is not listed in the recipient's address book, or because the email was simultaneously sent out to hundreds of recipients. Self-learning spam filters now existing that, based on your patterns of acceptance and rejection of emails, continuously develops its ability to discern between legitimate emails and spam. Using text analysis, a hosting company can even examine the exact content in an email to better determine its origins and intentions.