On August 30^th, 1982, a copyright for a Computer Program for Electronic Mail System was issued to Shiva Ayvadurai. Thus, email was born. 32 years later, email has become an essential part of our lives. Emails are a must-have item, allowing us to connect and share information with friends, teachers, and co-workers.

To celebrate email's birthday, here are 6 ways to secure your email account.

1. Think twice before opening unfamiliar emails. Do you open your front door to just anyone? Of course not. Don't open strange emails or any email that you're not completely confident in.
2. Be cautious about email links and attachments. Hackers use links and attachments to download nasty malware onto your computer. If an email seems suspicious, don't click or download anything.
3. Use 2-step verification. Email services like Gmail allow you to enable two-step verification because it adds more security to your account. After you enter a password and username, you enter a code sent by the email service to your phone when you sign in.
4. Beware of public computers. Never use a public computer to log into your email accounts, not even your cousin's or best friend's computer—you don't know if they've been infected.
5. Use strong, unique passwords. If your password is "password", you might want to change it to something more unique. I recommend a password with 8 or more characters with a mix of upper-case letters, lower-case letters, and numbers.
6. Use comprehensive security software. McAfee LiveSafe™ service can make protecting your email even easier with a strong firewall to block hackers, viruses, and worms and a password manager to help you remember all of your logins.

Happy Birthday email!

Robert Siciliano is an Online Security Expert to McAfee. He is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Mobile was Hacked!  Disclosures.