How to protect your email account

Your email account is probably the most important account you have online. Almost everything else – your bank, your online shopping, the NHS App – sends password resets to your email. So if someone gets into your email, they can often get into everything else too.

What a scammer can do with your email

• Pretend to be you. They can send messages to everyone in your address book. Friends and family trust a message from you, which is exactly why scammers want it.
• Find out about you. Your old emails show who you bank with, where you shop and which accounts you have.
• Take over your other accounts. They can use "forgotten password" links, which arrive in your inbox.
• Lock you out. If they change your password, you may lose access to your account for good.

Three steps to protect your email

1. Turn on 2-step verification

You may also hear this called two-factor authentication, or 2FA. As well as your password, you need a second thing to log in – usually a code sent to your mobile phone, or a prompt you tap on your phone to say "yes, this is me".

You won't be asked for it every time. Normally it only happens when someone tries to log in on a new device. So even if a criminal has your password, they can't get in without your phone.

Gmail, Outlook (Hotmail), Yahoo and Apple iCloud all offer this free. Look in your account's Security settings.

Some providers now also offer passkeys – a way to sign in using your phone's fingerprint, face recognition or PIN instead of a password. A passkey can't be guessed or stolen in a data breach, so if your email provider offers one, it's well worth setting up.

2. Give your email its own password

Never use your email password for anything else. Websites do get hacked, and when they do, the first thing criminals try is the stolen password on email accounts. Our article on Passwords explains how to create strong passwords you can remember.

3. Check your recovery details

Your recovery phone number and backup email address are how you get back in if you're ever locked out or forget your password. If you've had your account for many years, these may be missing or out of date – perhaps an old landline number or an email address you no longer use. Check them now, while everything is working.

Signs your email may have been hacked

• Friends tell you they've had strange messages from you.
• You find emails in your Sent folder that you didn't write.
• You get alerts about sign-ins you don't recognise.
• Your password suddenly stops working.

If any of these happen, change your password straight away from a device you trust, and come and see us.

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Need a hand?

Please bring the devices you use for email and your email password. Our friendly volunteers can help at our free sessions:

• Mondays 10am–12noon – St Wilfrid's Church Hall, Burgess Hill
• Thursdays 10am–12noon – Spire Café, St John's Church, Burgess Hill
• Haywards Heath – Bentswood @ No.34, America Lane (by appointment)

Call 07349 916841 or email spire.computer.help@gmail.com. No question is too small.

The Spire Computer Help Team