Sure it’s easy to just use the same password for everything. But with data breaches seemingly occurring on a daily basis, your email address and password that’s part of any data breach is surely being used to try to log into your email account and other accounts that hold personal, financial and other private information.
It’s been suggested by some clients that nobody would be interested in reading their email, so their email password doesn’t need to be secure or unique. However if a hacker accesses your email consider the following common occurrences:
- A hacker can reset/change your email password and lock you out of your account.
- A hacker can read all of your emails to figure out all the financial and shopping accounts that you do business with. With that information they can begin attempting to login to those websites, and if unable to do so – they can intercept the password reset emails sent to your email address and reset the passwords for those accounts too.
- A hacker can copy your contact list and/or send emails on your behalf asking for money, gift cards or to send spam and phishing emails that appear to come from you.
If your email password is not unique or easily guessed by others, please change your email password now!
Not only does your email account password need to be unique, your login information obtained from data breaches and phishing emails are also being used to login into other types of online accounts:
- Online file storage and personal backup accounts – to access to any personal documents that may contain private or financial data.
- Your wireless phone provider – to attempt to hijack your phone number and receive password reset codes.
- Online shopping accounts – to order merchandise with your stored payment information, and have it sent to the hacker.
- Online social media accounts – to impersonate you in attempt to convince friends or family to send money or gift cards to the hacker.
To create secure and unique passwords for every online account, check out how to safely manage your passwords, which includes tips for creating a secure a memorable password system.
For more information, I suggest reading this more in-depth article by security researcher and former Washington Post reporter, Brian Krebs: The Value of a Hacked Email Account.