Email has become an indispensable communication medium. Accordingly, e-mail is also a popular target for hackers. It doesn’t matter whether you send important data or which accounts you log in to with your e-mail address. Hackers are interested in all the data they can get their hands on. Hacked emails are therefore one of the biggest dangers on the Internet. It is therefore important to handle hacked emails correctly in order to minimize the damage. In this article, we explain what you can do if your emails are hacked.
Who is affected by hacked emails?
An email account usually contains numerous contact details. Not only your own, but also the addresses of recipients or newsletters you have subscribed to and so on. This data is a real treasure trove for hackers. For example, hackers can carry out targeted phishing if they can match contact details and names. It can go even further if the recipients of the emails are blackmailed. Or they receive false reminders to entice them to pay. Hacked emails can therefore cause long-term and far-reaching damage. Not only your own account is affected. Unfortunately, it is not so easy to recognize when you have been hacked. Hackers don’t like to leave traces of their crimes. Signs of hacked emails are mainly found in unusual changes and processes that you cannot explain yourself. At the top of the list is a changed password. If you suddenly can no longer access your mailbox with your password, it has certainly been hacked and the password changed. The first step, of course, is to change the password again. However, the damage has already been done. If the password is not changed, a lot of damage can still be done with a hacked e-mail. For example, emails are sent in your name that can spread the malware. So check your sent e-mails folder. If it contains emails that you did not write yourself, someone has gained unauthorized access to your mailbox. Emails that suddenly disappear can also be a sign of a hacker attack. An email was still there yesterday and is now in the trash or cannot be found at all. It has probably been deleted by someone else, which indicates a hack. The signs are therefore quite obvious if you know what to look out for.
What do you do if an email has been hacked?
The best thing to do, of course, is to take precautions. Use secure passwords and 2FA so that hackers cannot access your account. Unfortunately, one hundred percent security never exists. If you fall victim to a hack, the first thing you should do is change your password. Many email providers also have security questions. These should also be changed. Incidentally, the best way to change your password is to use the “forgotten password” function. You will then be sent a new password. This is more secure than changing the password yourself, as hackers may also be able to access the new password. You should also run a virus scan on your computer. This will ensure that no malware has found its way onto your hard disk. It is also a good idea to inform your contacts if they have received strange emails from your account. Notifying your email provider can also help to improve security. A hack is a criminal offense. You can therefore also file a complaint against unknown persons with the police.
Conclusion
A hacked email can cause a lot of damage. This damage is not necessarily limited to your own account. All contacts can be affected in the long term, as the data is collected or further malware is sent to these contacts. Viruses can also spread to the computer’s hard disk and cause even greater damage there.
