Directory harvest attack
Imagine your email account is like a big house with a mailbox outside. Sometimes, bad people go around to lots of different houses, including yours, and try every single mailbox to see if they can find any mail inside. They don't care about the mail or who lives in the house, they just want to find as many mailboxes as possible.
That's kind of what a directory harvest attack is. Hackers try to find as many email addresses as possible by guessing different combinations of first and last names, or trying common usernames like "admin" or "support." They use special software to search through lots of different email systems, trying to find out which email addresses are valid and which ones aren't.
Once they know which email addresses are valid, they can use them to send spam, phishing emails, or even launch other attacks against your email system.
To protect against directory harvest attacks, email providers use special software that checks every incoming message to make sure it was sent from a valid email address. They might also limit the number of emails you can send from your account in a single day, or implement other security measures to keep the bad guys out.
That's kind of what a directory harvest attack is. Hackers try to find as many email addresses as possible by guessing different combinations of first and last names, or trying common usernames like "admin" or "support." They use special software to search through lots of different email systems, trying to find out which email addresses are valid and which ones aren't.
Once they know which email addresses are valid, they can use them to send spam, phishing emails, or even launch other attacks against your email system.
To protect against directory harvest attacks, email providers use special software that checks every incoming message to make sure it was sent from a valid email address. They might also limit the number of emails you can send from your account in a single day, or implement other security measures to keep the bad guys out.