Spam is junk mail. It is advertising, offers, and noise, sent to thousands of addresses at once.

It is not a virus. Opening a spam message does not infect your computer. Most email programs today show you the text and hold back anything that could run.

That is the first thing to settle, because worry makes people do the wrong thing.

Spam and scams are different.

Spam wants your attention. A scam wants your money or your password. They arrive the same way, so they look alike.

A pharmacy ad is spam. A message saying your account is locked, with a link to fix it, is a scam. Scams get their own posts. See [How to Spot a Fake Email: The 3-Second Check].

Spam you can delete. A scam you have to recognize.

Where the risk is.

The message is rarely the problem. What is in it can be.

A link can take you to a fake page. An attachment can carry something that runs when you open it. A picture can load from the sender's server, which tells them your address is real and someone read the message.

So the rule is simple. Read it if you want to. Do not click anything and do not open anything attached.

How they got your address.

Most people assume they did something wrong. Usually they did not.

Addresses get sold. Addresses leak when a company you signed up with is breached. Addresses get guessed, because a program can try thousands of common names at a domain in minutes. An address you have used for twenty years has been through all three.

See [What Data Breaches Actually Mean].

Why it keeps coming.

Spam costs the sender almost nothing. If one person in a hundred thousand answers, it pays.

Every address that stays alive gets passed along and sold again. That is why the amount does not fall on its own. It builds.

What I would do today.

Nothing drastic. Do not delete your account. Do not buy a program that promises to end spam. Those programs are often the worse problem.

Check that your email program has a Junk folder and that it is on. Tomorrow I will cover the two things that make spam worse. Both feel like the right thing to do.

If your mailbox has thousands of messages and you cannot see the real ones, call me. I can sit down with you and clear it.

Tomorrow: Part 2, Do Not Reply, Unsubscribe Carefully.