Account takeover

Account takeover is when a criminal gains control of an account that belongs to you — email, banking, shopping, social media — and uses it as though they were you. Email is the prize target, because whoever holds it can reset the passwords to everything else. Attackers get in with credentials leaked in a data breach, guessed from reused passwords via credential stuffing, or captured by phishing.

Once inside they may drain funds, make purchases, harvest personal data for identity theft, or message your contacts to spread the scam further. Signs include being logged out unexpectedly, password-reset or login-alert emails you did not request, unfamiliar transactions, or friends receiving odd messages from you. The two habits that block most takeovers are a unique password for every important account, ideally kept in a password manager, and turning on two-factor authentication so a stolen password alone is not enough. If an account is taken, act fast: regain control, change the password, sign out other sessions, and check what else used the same login. Our guide to identity-theft warning signs covers the clean-up.