Beware these tricks .. Hackers do not need more than your email to harm you

Reader's Digest has published a report by Megan Jones about the risk of a hacker's access to your e-mail, what he can do with your information.

How to hand your information to the hacker?
"When an intruder knows your email address, he has half of your confidential information and all he needs now is a password," warns Greg Kelly of Vestig Digital Investigations.

Hackers use several different ways to do this, the most common being phishing email.

This is to design an email for a well-known website such as Amazon, eBay, and PayPal to trick you into asking you to do something.

Once people log on to this fake website, the hacker immediately receives the victim's credentials and password.

Among other ways, you may receive an email stating that your email has been compromised, so you need to change your password for security reasons.

Once you change your password, the hacker acquires it.

Once the hackers get your password, the Alibaba Grotto opens and the things they can do are much bigger, including:

1. Access your electronic accounts
Many people tend to use the same password to access their online accounts, enabling hackers to effortlessly access many other accounts.

But even if you use different passwords, the hacker can click on the "Forgot password" box for your accounts so that the password is resent or a new password is set.

2. Access to your personal data
The things hackers are able to do are connected together and are considered a chain reaction.

Once a hacker has access to your online accounts, you can imagine how much information he will be able to collect.

Alan Buxton, a criminal science expert at SecureForex, says the hacker will use your email address to view your Facebook account and see your friends list and some photos.

If that is not enough, Buxton said that if the hacker puts your email address on LinkedIn and searches for you, you will know where you work, your job, your colleagues, and where you've studied.

This information is enough for the hacker to start chasing you in the real world, not to mention other information from Instagram and Twitter.

3. Theft of your financial statements
Major problems will begin to appear as soon as hackers receive your credit card or bank card details.

Overall, this makes your online bank accounts a prime target for hackers, especially if you use your email address to sign in.

Money is in danger once your email is compromised, as it will be easy to reset your bank account and start issuing transactions. Hackers can open bank accounts in your name and get loans, as well as corrupting your credit card rating.

4- Blackmail you
If all these are not scary enough, hackers can use your personal information to harm you and destroy your reputation and threaten you, especially if the user finds something they can use against you because you don't want to trade in public.

"Hackers are able to spy on you and review most of your personal emails, information that can be used to blackmail you easily," said Daniel Smith, a security expert at Redwar.

5. Impersonate your identity
Impersonating someone is the worst case scenario ever, especially since an intruder has obtained for himself all your personal and personally identifiable information. Because email can contain credit card information, identity theft can be handy for hackers.

How can you stay safe from hackers?
In this context, you should avoid using your primary email address to log on to other sites (you can create a second email for the purpose of using an access code), and make sure your password is strong and hard to guess. Furthermore, you should change your passwords every two months for added security.

Jason Glasberg, co-founder of Casaba Security and former cybersecurity chief executive at Ernst, Young & Lehman Brothers, also recommends securing your email account through two-factor authentication. On the other hand, don't share information or write your email password on public Wi-Fi networks, and be smart about the information you share via email.

What to do if you think you have been hacked?
If you hear about spam emails sent from your address, you should immediately change your password and notify your contacts so that they ignore what they might receive.

It is also a good idea to change your e-mail privacy settings to the utmost security and scan your computer for malware and viruses.