AARP Hearing Center
How to Prevent Your Email From Getting Hacked — and What to Do If It Happens to You
All it takes is one click on a malicious link to give criminals access to your account. Follow these steps to secure it
5-minute read
Getty Images
Key takeaways
- Phishing remains the leading tactic in email hacks, and a single click on a fake message can give criminals access to your account and personal information.
- A compromised email account can help scammers reset passwords, access sensitive data and target your contacts with convincing fraud attempts.
- If your email is hacked, quickly secure the account, review settings, alert contacts and enable multi-factor authentication to reduce future risk.
On a Saturday morning in June, Alie Mitisek was sipping coffee and checking her emails when she saw what appeared to be a Paperless Post invitation from her cousin.
“I was like, ‘Oh, maybe we’re going to have a family get-together,” Mitisek, 44, recalls.
More Ways to Benefit
- Related Benefit 1
- Related Benefit 2
- Related Benefit 3
- Related Benefit 4
- Related Benefit 5
She opened the email and logged in to read the invitation. Almost immediately, Google alerts flashed on her phone. Mitisek had experienced a phishing scam, and hackers were trying to access her email account. (Read more about invitation scams.)
“I started getting all these messages [from Google] about suspicious activity,” she says. She responded that the activity was, in fact, unauthorized, and Google shut down the attempted takeover. “I was shocked. I couldn’t believe how quickly it happened.”
Mitisek, who thinks her email was taken from another relative’s hacked account months earlier, is director of life enrichment for Eaton Senior Communities in Denver, where she teaches technology classes that cover topics such as, yes, suspicious emails. The phishing attempt left her embarrassed, surprised and angry. But she is far from alone. Since 2004, approximately 23.7 billion accounts have been breached globally, according to a May 2026 report from Clean Email, an email management company.
Safeguard Your Records
The AARP Digital Vault keeps essential records secure, organized, and protected, giving access only to the people you authorize. It’s just $20 a year as an add-on AARP membership benefit.
In a 2026 report from data and research company Worldmetrics, phishing was the primary method used in 82 percent of email hacking incidents. Criminals also gain access to email via malware, data breaches and hacking people’s devices. The nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) reported an 11.9 percent increase in unauthorized device access in its 2026 trends report.
“Most people stay logged in to their email on their phone,” says Mona Terry, the ITRC’s chief operating and programs officer. “If someone gets into your device, they can access that pretty easily.”
Why criminals want your email
A hacked email account is an information gold mine. Criminals can use it to take over and reset passwords for other accounts that don’t have multi-factor authentication or another layer of protection beyond using your email as a login.
“Your email is not only a communication application, but it’s the backstop security mechanism for almost all apps,” says Steve Grobman, chief technology officer at McAfee. “If a scammer can get access to somebody’s email, it gives them the ability to do account takeovers for almost everything else, including high-valued assets like financial accounts.”
Once criminals access your email, they’ve essentially accessed your life. They may find account numbers or your Social Security number and use AI to scan messages about your relationships, health, travel or finances. Those details can fuel blackmail or targeted scams. Criminals can also access your contacts and send them phishing messages.
“This is where you start seeing variants of grandparent scams or hardship scams,” says Grobman. “The scammer looks in your sent items, or uses AI to read them, and says, ‘Oh, her best friend is Sally.’ You might have been talking to Sally about your hip replacement. So the scammer sends Sally a note that says, ‘I was on the way to see my orthopedic surgeon, and I blew a tire, and none of my credit cards work. I really need to make this appointment. Could you let me use your credit card so I can get there?’ It’s a great example of where the technology of 2026 can rapidly analyze the content in email and use it to attack your network.”
What to do if you’re hacked
In Mitisek’s case, Google stopped the hackers, but you may discover a breach only when your login is rejected, your password changes unexpectedly, an unknown device accesses the account, messages appear that you didn’t send or a friend receives a strange email from you.
However the hack is confirmed, the top priority is regaining control of your account, Grobman says. Take these steps:
1. Alert your email provider. If you can’t access the account, ask for a temporary password. “Almost every email service will have some process if your email is compromised, and they will work to authenticate you,” Grobman says (here are options for Google's Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo).
2. Change the password. If you can access the account, change the password immediately. Then change the passwords for your other accounts. “Think of it from a triage perspective,” Grobman says. “Start with email, finances, medical, social media, then everything else. Getting your email back under control is the first thing you want to do.”
3. Sign out of all devices. Apple, Google and Microsoft all have settings that let you sign out of all your devices from one device. “That way, anyone who’s logged in to your account on another device will get kicked out,” according to the Federal Trade Commission.
4. Warn your contacts. Alert people on your contact lists about the hack and advise them to ignore any requests from your email address (and not to click links or download files). “Tell the people that you communicate with regularly, ‘Hey, this is what happened, and if you got something that sounds weird, it’s probably not me,’ ” says Terry.
5. Look for suspicious activity. Review your sent and deleted mail folders for signs of hacker activity.
6. Check your email settings. The scammer may have disabled your security settings. “Most email accounts have security features, so go in and make sure they’re enabled,” Terry says. Also see if the hacker activated an auto-forwarding feature, which would forward your emails to another address.
How to protect yourself
Once you’ve taken the steps outlined above, protect yourself from future hackers.
Be thoughtful when reviewing emails. Mitisek says she opened the fake invitation without much thought. “Thinking back on it, I’m like, Would my cousin have actually sent out an invite like that? Probably not.”
Set a strong password. Set a strong password. Aim for at least 16 characters, the National Cybersecurity Alliance recommends, because automated tools can crack shorter passwords more quickly. Use a random mix of letters, numbers and symbols, and don’t share it.
Don’t use the same password for different accounts. Once hackers discover your password, they’ll try using it on other accounts.
Enable multi-factor authentication. It offers a layer of security on top of your password, often in the form of a one-time code sent by text, email or voice bot to your phone, creating an important barrier against hackers. “I can’t stress multi-factor authentication enough,” says Terry. “Thieves are getting in there and changing passwords and setting up multi-factor authentication with their own contact information, and it’s so much harder to recover [your account].”
Report it. You can report a hacked email to the ITRC, which can offer assistance and a personalized plan to address the problem. Call 888-400-5530 or live chat online. Report all scams to your local police and the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at IC3.gov.
Call the free AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline at 877-908-3360 to speak with trained specialists who can offer support and guidance.
The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.
AARP Membership
Join AARP for only $15 per year with automatic renewal. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of benefits, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP The Magazine.
More From AARP
Watch Out for This New Foldable iPhone Scam
A bogus $500 offer could put your personal information at risk before you buy anything
Consumers Receiving Fake Product Recall Notices
Criminals impersonate retailers with recall alerts to steal money or information
Debt-Relief Fraud Targets People in Need
Criminals steal from desperate victims seeking financial assistance