Run Your Antivirus Program
As noted by the FTC's guide on hacked email, the first thing you should do if your account gets hacked is to run an end-to-end antivirus scan.
Skip the "quick scan" setting in favor of a deep scan to identify and eliminate not only all forms of malware (including Trojans, spyware, and keyloggers that could be tracking your keystrokes even after the hack has been identified) and potentially unwanted applications.
Hackers don't just want access to your account so they can send your friends embarrassing messages — they're looking for ways to scam you out of money or commit credit card fraud. For example, hackers target businesses that regularly send funds via wire transfer. Once an email account is compromised, they are able to send their own unauthorized transfers.
According to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, businesses saw an exposed loss of more than $747 million over the last two years, despite having network protection in place and IT staff on board.
When it comes to your email accounts, the sooner you run an antivirus scan, the better. It's important to make sure you're clean before you change any of your other sensitive information to avoid restarting the cycle.
Change Your Passwords
Once your computer is free of malware, it's time to change your password. If you've lost access to your account, you may need to contact the email provider directly, prove who you are and ask for a password reset.
Choose a new password that is markedly different from your old one and make sure it doesn't contain strings of repeated characters or numbers. Stay away from passwords that have obvious ties to your name, birthday, or similar personal details. Hackers can easily find this information and often use it in their first brute force attempts to access your account.
Your password should be unique for each account, complex (i.e., a mix of letters, numbers, and special characters) and at least 15 characters long. If you need help creating new passwords or managing all your new complex ones, use a secure password manager to safely save them.
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