Cybercrime has increased again at the latest since the increased use of home offices. The VDT's IT systems are also attacked time and again. Fortunately, we are well positioned, but the most difficult gateway are the e-mail services. When it comes to IT security, we should therefore all take a proactive approach to our e-mail accounts.

The current reason for this news are two recently hacked "tonmeisterei" email accounts of our members, which were then used to send mass spam mails. This mass spam unfortunately leads to the fact that we were reprimanded by our provider. Because the IP address, which was provided to us by him, ended up on various blacklists due to these spam mails.

In order to avoid this for all of us, we urgently ask all users of an e-mail box with an association domain (tonmeister.de, tonmeister.eu etc.) to handle access data very carefully:

• Please ensure that the passwords of the e-mail accounts do not come into the possession of third parties.
• Please protect all end devices on which these e-mail accounts are set up appropriately with virus scanners or other measures.

Security recommendations

Here is a small list of simple ways to increase security and thus protect yourself and also the association:

1. Two-factor authentication

Both the access to MyVDT and the webmailer can be protected by a so called two-factor authentication.

• The setup in MyVDT is done in the profile in the section "Login & Roles".
• In the webmailer (https://webmail.all-inkl.com) the setup is done under "Settings > Change password".

IMPORTANT: When the two-factor authentication is activated via the webmailer, access via an e-mail client (Outlook, Thunderbird, AppleMail ...) is automatically no longer possible.

2. Access restriction to the mailbox

If you wish, we can set up further access restrictions to your mailbox:

• A fixed IP address or also one, or more IP address ranges (only useful if the mailbox is exclusively queried from the office or home).
• Access only via webmailer, optionally with two-factor authentication (see above)
• Protection of the webmail with a two-factor authentication with further accessibility of the server via an e-mail client.

Please contact us if you are interested in such a restriction.

3. Outgoing server (SMTP)

For the outgoing server (SMTP) use only "<customer number>.kasserver.com" and "port 465". This connection is encrypted.
You can find out the <customer number> in MyVDT under the tab "Email program setup".

4. Password

Use strong, secure passwords that cannot be guessed. Update passwords on a regular basis. Make sure that passwords do not fall into the wrong hands.

5. Phishing mails

Malware is spread to a very large extent via e-mails. Use reliable spam filters, leave spam e-mails unopened if possible, do not click on links in spam e-mails.

6. Virus scanner

Check your end devices regularly with up-to-date virus scanners.

7. Use forwarding instead of mailbox

If you use your "tonmeisterei" email address only as an additional receiving address and do not use it for sending, a forwarding instead of a mailbox is sufficient. Of course, this measure prevents unwanted spamming via our IP address in the most effective way.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)