Email Hacked? How to Proceed & End Password Anxiety for Your Account

Seth Brand
Jul 23, 2017 · 3 min read

Has your email address been sending messages you didn’t send? How to Proceed if Your Email Hacked

Is your email hacked, or do you suspect your email has been hacked due to oddities such as messages in your sent box you didn’t send? If so, your other accounts such as Facebook, Twitter or even your bank account could be at risk. While this causes a lot of headache and anxiety, there are a few steps you should take to proceed to make sure you are the only one with access.

Changing your passwords is a good first step. The next step to ensure you are not going to have your emails hacked again is to make sure your password is not easy to guess, such as a dictionary word as hackers use programs to do brute force checks and run dictionary password attacks against services. Also, make sure the password wasn’t leaked from your local machine. Most often when an email is hacked it is due to a virus on a computer than can detect and log keystrokes, therefore gaining your password. Two such viruses are known as keyloggers or RATs, Remote Access Tools, and they can tell a hacker much more than just your email password. One of my clients had his email address hacked and asked me what to do to make sure it was secure and this is what I recommended.

Prevention — 10 Steps to Keep Your Accounts from Being Hacked

The first step to security in any field, including your personal accounts and emails, is prevention. Preventing someone from gaining access to your personal data requires a few things. Here is what I recommend to do for prevention:

  • Make sure you have an Antivirus and keep it updated.
  • Run regular scans of your computer with your antivirus.
  • Make sure your Firewall is active. Windows Defender is good enough for most personal use and is free with Windows.
  • Make sure your passwords aren’t in a dictionary or a name. Adding numbers doesn’t count.
  • Don’t use the same password twice, ever, anywhere.
  • Change your passwords regularly.
  • Use a password manager, personally, I use recommend Dashlane (Disclosure, that is a referral link. I do use recommend them regardless, and using it won’t cost you anything, it will actually save you money.)which saves passwords so you don’t have to type them. This renders keyloggers useless. It can help check your passwords for breaches and tell you if they are strong enough and even generate passwords for you. End password anxiety with a password manager such as Dashlane, Lastpass or Roboform.
Email Hacked? Check with https://haveibeenpwned.com/
Email Hacked? Check with https://haveibeenpwned.com/
Emailed hacked? Change them with secure generated passwords.
  • Don’t click suspicious links or open attachments in your email accounts from unknown senders.
  • Monitor your accounts, you aren’t always the source of the breach. Even big companies get attacked and user data is leaked. For example, Yahoo Says 1 Billion User Accounts Were Hacked written December 2016, The New York Times by Nicole Perlroth
  • For email monitoring use, Have I Been Pwned is great as it checks your email against hacked database breach reports and other resources.
Email Hacked? Check with https://haveibeenpwned.com/
Email Hacked? Check with https://haveibeenpwned.com/
Email Hacked? Check with https://haveibeenpwned.com/

Already Had My Email Hacked, What Now?

The main thing you need to do in the case of your email being hacked is to regain access, then follow the above steps to prevent it from happening again. Immediately change your password, scan your computer with an antivirus and make sure you aren’t infected. Then run an audit with Dashlane of your passwords, or any other password audit service you prefer. LastPass also offers auditing solutions. Hackers use your passwords over and over, so make sure you change your passwords everywhere your password was used. Again, don’t recycle passwordsa for other sites. Use unique passwords everywhere.

Seth Brand

Written by

Media Marketer in the Web Hosting industry. Passionate about marketing, technology, writing, artificial intelligence the future of the web as it evolves.

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