We’ve had a lot of support calls recently where the person’s email or other account has been hacked. In the case of email accounts, the hackers have copied the person’s contact list and is sending spam messages out to the contacts and forging their name and email address. After their account got hacked, people usually ask us how it happened. Below are usual ways that hackers are able to access accounts.
1. Guessing an insecure password to access your account.
2. Guessing the answer to your account security question, then resetting the password so that the account can be accessed.
3. Insecure web site databases are being hacked and the usernames and passwords are being used to log into accounts at the different web sites. For example, here’s a common scenario that could happen to you: