Mailboxes are generally only protected by a password and some are very easy to decode. When a hacker manages to bypass these protections, he can access the victim’s email account and act on his/her behalf to carry out attacks on digital life.
There are three main methods that criminals use to hack an email account: First, password theft, either by creating a fake website to lure the victim into entering their password or by infecting the victim’s computer to retrieve the saved passwords.
Second, when the same email password is used on several internet services and one of them is hacked, the hacker can recover a password and uses it to authenticate on other platforms; this is why it is essential to have one-time passwords.
Finally, if the victim uses a weak or easily guessed password, it becomes easy for the hacker to hack his/her account.
The most frequent attack, when a hacker takes control of an email box, is to use it to approach the victim’s contacts. It can launch a very basic attack, such as an urgent cash request, or infect targets with malware.
Mailboxes are regularly considered a gold mine for hackers. The vast majority of our life is online, such as e-commerce sites, social networks; online subscriptions, etc. are all linked to our mailbox.
When a criminal has access to it, he implicitly regains access to all the accounts linked to it. Thus, the hacker just has to click on the “Forgot my password” button on a website for an email to be sent to the account address, allowing him to create a new password and finally recover access to the account in question.
So, even without hacking an email account, a hacker can abuse an online identity if proper precautions have not been taken.
You must always have a good approach to be able to protect yourself, detect and respond to an attack.
Good passwords, strong authentication, and constant monitoring of activity on an email box can effectively protect against theft of an account.
How to know that your email has been properly received and read?
The solution: When sending an email you must always request a reply. You can use email tracking tools to know that your email has been received and read. You can configure Outlook to request a read receipt.