A Love Letter to Email (And Not to Fall for Phishing Scams)

National Email Week 2026: Celebrating Our Favorite (and Most Frustrating) Communication Tool

Let’s be honest: email is the ultimate paradox. It’s the one place where we can send our thoughts into the void and actually expect a response… eventually. It’s the digital equivalent of leaving a voicemail in 2026, nobody’s thrilled about it, but we all keep using it anyway. And this week, we’re celebrating it!

The Glory Days of Email: When we Actually Had Time to Read Them

Remember when you could keep up with your inbox? When emails weren’t a chaotic stream of newsletters, notifications, and your manager asking if you saw the email they sent 3 minutes ago? Those were the days. Now? We’re all playing a very sophisticated game called:

• Have I read this email or just pretended to by hovering over it?
• Is this 47-person CC list necessary or is someone just scared?
• Why is my calendar just random calendar invites from meetings I’ll never attend?

Email’s Greatest Hits (The Ones we All Recognize)

1. The “Reply-All” Disaster – Someone responds to a company-wide email with something deeply personal and… well, everyone sees it. It becomes legend.
2. The Forgotten Attachment – “Sorry, here’s the attachment I forgot!”, sent 47 times a day across the workplace.
3. The Email Chain That Never Dies – Started in 2015, still going strong. Nobody knows why. Someone just keeps hitting “reply all.”
4. The Newsletter You Didn’t Sign Up For – Three years later, you finally find the unsubscribe button at the bottom in tiny font.

But Wait… There’s a Plot Twist

While we’re all busy deleting junk and wondering why we’re still on that 2018 company mailing list, there’s something far less friendly lurking in our inboxes, phishing attacks, no not the kind involving fishing rods.

Phishing Attacks: The Uninvited Party Guests of Email

Think of phishing emails like scammers wearing a poorly-fitting costume of someone you trust. They’re trying to trick you into clicking links, opening sketchy attachments, or handing over your passwords. Here are the most common types:

• Email Phishing – Fraudulent emails pretending to be from your bank, IT team, or that colleague named ‘Steve’. They want your credentials or to get you to click something evil.

• Spear Phishing – The scammers did their homework. They know your name, your role, and they crafted a message specifically for YOU. Super creepy, hard to spot.
• Smishing & Vishing – Phishing via text (smishing) or phone call (vishing). Someone claims to be IT support and needs you to act immediately. Spoiler: they’re not IT support.
• Fake Login Pages – A link that looks legit, but takes you to a fake website that looks exactly like the real one. You type your password… and they’ve got it.

Red Flags: Your Spidey-Sense Should be Tingling

• Urgency or Threats – “Your account will be locked in 24 hours!” or “Verify your identity NOW!” Scammers want you panicked and not thinking clearly. Real companies don’t work like this.
• Mismatched Sender Address – The display name says “Apple Support” but the actual email is from “definitely.not.scammy@sketchy-domain.com”? Yeah, that’s not Apple.
• Generic Greetings “Dear Customer” or “Dear User” instead of your actual name usually means it’s a mass phishing attempt. Legit companies use your name.
• Unexpected Attachment – Random PDFs, Word docs, or ZIP files from “colleagues” you barely know? Hover before clicking. Or better yet, just ask them first.
• Suspicious Links – The link text says “Click here” but when you hover, the actual URL is… somewhere completely different. Don’t click it.
• Odd Spelling/Grammar – Professional companies proofread. Obvious typos and weird phrasing? That’s a phishing tell. Scammers sometimes use bad grammar on purpose to slip past filters.

So What Do You When You Spot One?

1. DON’T CLICK ANYTHING – Not the links, or attachments
2. Report it – Forward it to your IT/Security Team (us) and mark it as phishing in your email client. You’ll help to protect the whole team.
3. When in Doubt, Ask First – If something feels off about an email from someone you know, call them or chat them directly.

Please feel free to download and refer to our one-pager (maybe even print-it out and hang it somewhere special)

THE BOTTOM LINE

Email might be chaotic, overwhelming, and full of necessary CC lists, but it’s still the backbone of modern communication. And that’s exactly why we need to protect it. So this National Email Week, let’s celebrate the tool we love to hate, and let’s keep our inboxes (and passwords) safe from the bad guys. 

Stay safe, stay skeptical, and maybe clean out your inbox while you’re at it.