I have a question on email addresses and scammers, can you help?

[Amy10223]

Hello,
I need some techie help. I belong to a language exchange program. Recently, I had a language partner ask me to send him pictures of my paintings to him with my email (the site is not friendly for sending photos). I have two email addresses. One is associated with my banking/personal credit card information, and the other is not. In other words, I have never put down that email address (a gmail account) in any of my personal banking and it's not associated with any credit card. If I send this person my pictures, and I use the gmail address NOT associated with my banking/credit card information--is there a chance (assuming he is a scammer) that he is still able to access my personal info?
That's my question in a nutshell.

Updates

+1 y

Good news. It went well. I mistakely wrote this person on my regular email address, and he finally was able to connect with me on Line wirth no problems. All is good, thankfully.

[zeitgeist057]

You could safely use either email account. However, there are other risks that you should be aware of, as it seems you do not have a lot of technical knowledge about cybersecurity: https://blog.mailfence.com/email-security-and-privacy-course/

You could also explore this webpage that provides free resources for learning about cybersecurity: https://www.nist.gov/itl/applied-cybersecurity/nice/resources/online-learning-content#EmployeeAwarenessTraining (it's where I found the first link, but there are many more courses/resources)

If you don't want to click the links, you can also search in Google: "internet email security training free online" and go to the "National Institute of Standards and Technology (. gov) - Free and Low Cost Online Cybersecurity Learning Content" result towards the top of the list. the ". gov" ending means it is run by the USA government.

I put another answer on someone else's response, saying you can use your gmail account, or you can use a free Proton mail account, but those are extra steps and your regular email that you also use for your bank should be safe as long as you don't fall for any attempt to get your password (s).

[AviatorTom]

Amy, best would be to create and use a completely new account for this, maybe in yahoo. com, and only include the bare minimum of personal info in it.

[zeitgeist057]

proton mail is free and has protections.

[Jennz6]

I don’t know, but I wouldn’t take a chance. Play it safe

[Jennz6]

Thanks for the MHO

[krin_m]

I would create a totally new account to communicate with him.

[Amy10223]

This is what I did. So that he cannot get any personal info associated with an email address that IS associated with my banks. Is this safe enough?

[krin_m]

Well, nothing is totally safe. If he knows your name and where you live (city), he can find out a lot of information about you. Bank accounts should probably be safe, unless your bank gets hacked.

[zeitgeist057]

Just having your email address is not enough for him to get into your bank. He would have to have access to your email account, which means you would need to give him the password to your email account.

More concerning would be an attempt to get your password. This could happen from an individual, "social engineer", but is more likely as a random program you run into on the web, or from a phishing email that pretends to be legit, like an email from your bank saying they need you to log on, but it's not really from your bank, it's from a hacker wanting your log on information. You follow the link to a fake site that is set up to look like your bank, and when you put in the password, bam, they have access to your account.

[zeitgeist057]

@Amy10223 it's a good idea if you are uncertain about internet security to never open links in email. Let's say you get an email from your bank and you are pretty sure it's actually from your bank. STILL, don't click a link. Just open a new page/tab in your web browser and go directly to the bank website to access your account. This is the safest way. I have tight security but still get several fake emails or texts every week that are phishing. they just type in random email addresses and/or phone numbers using automated systems, hoping for a "fish".