Email accounts are a particularly popular target for hackers. Emails often contain a treasure trove of valuable data, including banking information. Obtaining this data can allow fraudsters to apply for credit, open new bank accounts or conduct fraudulent transactions. They may sell your data to the highest bidder; sometimes, they will even use personal data for espionage, harassment or blackmail purposes. We’ll look at how to tell if your email has been hacked, what steps you should take next, and how you can protect your account from hacking attacks in the future.

How to know if your email has been hacked

Hackers have several ways to get into your email account. The most common is phishing – getting the victim to click on a fraudulent link. Users may also be vulnerable when using a public or shared device, or if they used an easy-to-guess password or reused one from another hacked site.

There are a number of signs that your email may have been hacked, some more obvious than others. The clearest indication is an inability to sign in, but others include unexpected or missing emails – which you may only find out about from your contacts – unexpected changes to your password or account settings, or alerts from your email provider -mail itself. There are several ways to check if your email has been hacked. First, running an antivirus program should show if there is any suspicious software lurking. This is probably the most definitive way to check. In addition, many security firms such as Avast, Norton and specialized site I was Pwnedthey have online services to tell you if your password is available on the dark web.

Hacking sign Example 1: Unable to login

Most people discover their email has been hacked when they find they can’t log in using their current password or their account settings have changed. You can also identify unknown devices or locations listed in the activity log of your email account.

Hacking sign Example 2: Unknown submitted articles

Your contacts may start receiving strange emails seemingly from you, asking them to click on a link or send money. Checking your Sent folder can reveal sending mass emails to all your contacts. Meanwhile, other genuine emails may disappear as the hacker takes control.

Hacking Sign Example 3: You get an alert

Depending on your provider and how your account has been set up, you may find that your email has been hacked when you receive an alert from your email provider itself . This can alert you that your account settings have been changed, or that someone has logged into your account from a device you don’t recognize or from a location you’re not in. The alert will ask for confirmation that it was you and allow you to secure your account.

Hacking sign Example 4: Password reset emails

You may start receiving emails asking you to reset your password for other sites – shopping sites, financial institutions, and the like. This is a sign that criminals have hacked your email and are now trying to gain access to your other accounts and services and discover and exploit your banking information.

What should you do if your email is hacked?

If you suspect your email account has been hacked, you’ll have some work ahead of you — and you’ll need to act pretty quickly. The first priority, of course, is to regain control of the account.

As soon as you have done that, you should make sure that the recovery information is correct and that the hacker has not added their own recovery email address or phone number. You’ll also need to alert your contacts, check whether other accounts like Facebook or — heaven forbid — bank accounts have been accessed, and check your credit report to make sure the criminals didn’t help themselves for your money. You should also take steps to ensure that your account remains secure in the future.

Step 1: Run an antivirus scan

It is very likely that attackers gained access to your account using malware. So if you still have access to your account, the first thing to do is run an antivirus scan – as thorough a scan as possible.

This will check for spyware, trojans, keyloggers and other malware and remove them – do this for all devices that use your email account, including computers, smartphones and tablets. At the same time, you should ensure that your browsers and applications are up to date and that you have installed security updates. It’s also a good idea to remove any extensions or third-party apps that you no longer need or use.

Step 2: Change your password

Once you’re sure your devices are malware-free, you should change your password to something completely new and different from anything you’ve used before.

Make sure your new password is as strong and unique as possible – using upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters. Avoid anything that can be guessed, such as dates of birth or names of children or pets, as well as “tweaked” versions of any of these. If you’re worried that you won’t be able to remember your new password, you might consider storing it—and all your other passwords—safely in a password manager. And you should also change your security questions – make sure there’s nothing that can be guessed by looking at, say, social media posts.

Step 3: Confirm that your other accounts have not been affected

Email credentials are often used for other accounts and applications, such as social networks, subscription services and banking services – and these accounts are often targeted by hackers.

It’s a little time consuming, but it’s vital to go through any other accounts and check they’re all clear, changing passwords to be safe and prevent them from gaining control. It goes without saying that all these passwords should be strong and unique. If you believe other accounts have also been affected, you should try to reset your password and, if not, contact customer service.

Step 4: Alert your contacts

If attackers have taken control of your email account, it’s highly likely that they will try and target your contacts with malware or scams – and you should try to prevent this if possible.

You can send a generic email to all your contacts, explaining what happened and warning them not to open suspicious links coming from your email address or respond to any requests for financial help. And if there’s any chance that attackers have breached your social media accounts as well, you’ll need to issue the same warnings there as well. You could also suggest that they harden their own privacy settings to be safe.

Step 5: Check your credit report

The holy grail for anyone who hacks your email account is to gain access to your money. Check your accounts and contact your bank immediately if you notice any suspicious activity.

And be eagle-eyed when doing this: it’s not unusual for hackers to start with very small transactions in your account, just to check the lie of the land. You should also check your credit rating and ask credit reporting agencies to monitor your accounts for a few months after you’ve been hacked, just to make sure the problems don’t resurface.

How can you recover your email account?

Whether or not you have access to your account, it’s a good idea to contact your email service provider – it could help the company catch hackers and protect its customers in the future.

If you’ve lost access to your account, though, this is something you’ll definitely need to do. You will need to request a password reset, so make sure you have the answers to any security questions. Many email companies now have a dedicated recovery page that allows you to do this online – you can find Google’s Gmail service HereMicrosoft Outlook Hereand Yahoo Here. If you have problems, there are agents available for live chats and through these pages.

How can you secure your email account against hackers?

Once you’ve regained control of your email account, you’ll want to do everything you can to make sure it doesn’t get hacked again—and that means developing good security habits.

Change your password regularly, always to something unique and strong. Avoid clicking on links in emails unless you’re absolutely sure they’re legitimate, enable spam filters, and be careful about accessing email over public Wi-Fi. A VPN should provide more security. You should also keep all software up to date by enabling automatic updates, which often include fixes for known vulnerabilities. And finally, make sure you use a good anti-virus package and enable multi-factor verification, for example where you are sent an authentication code if available.

Conclusion

Finding out that your email has been hacked can be a real shock and take a long time to resolve. But if you keep a cool head and follow all the right steps, you should be able to recover your account and protect yourself from future problems.