Securing your email account is vital. It’s the one thing that everyone must do unless they want hackers to invade your privacy and possible steal your money.
A news story from Australia is yet another lesson in why everyone should properly secure their email account with two-factor authentication.
A lady lost $26,000 Aussie dollars (US$17,500) because her email account had been hacked. The criminals sent new account information to receive part of a house sale proceeds.
The bogus messages were sent from the person’s own email account which had been hacked sometime earlier.
The news article makes a good point about double-checking account details, via a phone call. Just in case the invoice is a scam with the criminals bank account.
But it overlooks the core issue of an insecure email account that the hackers had sneakily accessed. That let them send sincere looking emails that appear to come from the true account owner.
It’s just one example of the trouble and major loss that can occur when an email account is infiltrated.
In our experience, people often worry about login security for banks and some other accounts like Amazon or Ebay. Too many overlook the “huge open door” available with an insecure email account.
Office Watch has been banging on about this for years but even now we hear from readers trying to deal with the damage caused by a compromised email account.
Even if there’s no loss of money, it can be difficult or impossible to regain access to your email because the first thing a criminal does is change the password and alternative access options.
Close door BEFORE the horse has bolted
In other words, please shut the proverbial barn door before the horse has left.
Most email accounts (e.g. outlook.com, Microsoft 365, Gmail etc) have extra security in the form of two-factor authentication and other measures like Passkeys.
If your email account does NOT have two-factor authentication, it’s time to move to a more secure option, fit for use in the 21st Century. Many ISP (Internet Service Provider) email accounts don’t have this vital security measure,
Having a strong or complex password is NOT enough.
If you’re worried about setting up two-factor authentication, find a local friendly nerd to help you through the setup (it’s not too hard and we don’t bite <g>).
