What to Do If Someone Has Hacked Into Your Email Account

There are a couple of ways that your email account can be compromised or hacked.

One way is through a virus. If this is the case, you should still have access to your email account. If you do, go to it immediately and change your password. This virus can act in a number of ways by spamming everyone in your address book and making it look like it comes from you.

If you are sure that you didn't send the emails out, then send an email blast to your contacts informing them that the spam didn't come from you but from a third party. You might want to tell them how viruses work and ensure that you and your contacts have a good antivirus program installed and running.

Your email being hacked used to be a bigger problem in previous years than it is today. This is because most email hosting services have programs included to protect your address book.

If someone has compromised your account, they have no doubt changed your password so you can no longer access it. This is bad news. You need to take immediate action by contacting your ISP (Internet Service Provider). Hopefully they have enough identifying information about you so they can issue you with another password on the spot. If the situation is beyond just changing a password, they may tell you to create a new email address. The latter is a last resort and doesn't happen frequently.

After you get a new account, you can let your contacts know and reassure them that the problem was not of your making. Again, be sure to let them know they should all have a good antivirus program installed and enabled.

What happens if you have an account with a free provider like Google?

Google presents a bit of an issue. If you have other accounts with them such as Adsense, Google Docs, and/or Blogger; they are all tied to the same account so this means all these accounts have been compromised.

? Reset your Google password by using this link: google.com/accounts/ForgotPasswd. You'll be able to ask to reset your password and Google will send instructions to your secondary email address that you have on file with Google. This will work if the hacker has not managed to change your secondary email address while in your account.

? If that didn't work, then there is a form you can fill out here: https://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/request.py?hl=en&contact_type=acc_reco&ara=2&ctx=acc_reco&rd=1. This form is letting Google know that your account has been compromised.

? Should the above not work, then use the following link as your last resort: http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/request.py?hl=en&contact_type=ara&rd=1

Having your email account compromised is not fun. We depend on them so much and this is why taking all the necessary steps to prevent this is much better than trying to fix it once it's happened.

Deb Marsden is an experienced Internet training customer support manager.

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