Has your email been hacked into? Watch out if you use free email services

Lisa Hendrickson | August 30, 2010 | 0 Comments

Email hacking is back in full force. I saw some relief this summer, but just in the past week I have seen two people sending me email that was not really sent from them. Their email was hacked into and and these folks are all using free email services such as Hotmail, MSN, Yahoo.

Many of these emails are sent stating you (the one with the hacked email) are on travel in Spain or England and have lost access to your money. They want you (the recipient of the email) to wire money, etc. Some just have a link in the message. Never click on those links!

What the hackers do

They get your email login and password, log into your account and do the following:

Sends spam messages to your entire contact/address book
Turn on your vacation reply, so anytime anyone emails you, a spam message gets sent.
Possibly will change your password so you cannot log back in
Cause a lot of problems for the person that they hacked

If you are the victim of a hacker, and can log into your account, here is what we recommend:

Changing your passwords and security questions as soon as possible
Email everyone telling them you have been hacked and do not reply to that message
Report this to your email provider
Change your social media passwords to not be the same as your email passwords

If you have tried changing your password and it will not let you into your account, you can try to have it reset by the email provider. My last client with this problem could not get it to work, Hotmail set up a temporary forum for her to communicate with them about it, but she lost access and is now completely locked out of her account. What recourse does she have? I recommended that she get off Hotmail and pay for her own email account. For $50 a year, you will be able to avoid this problem and own your own email account.

The problem with free services, is that you get free support and on the email providers time frame. You will never get instant access back to your account and will probably have to wait in a queue until they have time for you. If you are running your business with a free email provider, I recommend getting off that account now. Even Gmail as great as everyone says it is, has support forums. No phone number to call, no quick email support.

What can you do to help prevent this?