My Email Was Hacked — Do These 6 Things Right Now

Your email is the master key: whoever controls it can reset your banking, shopping and social passwords. So move fast, in this order.

1. Try to log in and change the password

If you can still get in, change the password immediately to something long and new — not a variation of the old one. If you cannot get in, use the provider's account recovery page right away (search "Gmail account recovery" or "Outlook account recovery" — go to the real site).

2. Turn on two-factor authentication

This is the single change that prevents the next hack: a code from your phone is required to sign in. Do it while you are in the security settings.

3. Check the sneaky settings

Hackers add forwarding rules so your mail keeps flowing to them after you change the password. In settings, check Forwarding and Filters/Rules — delete anything you did not create. Also sign out all other sessions.

4. Change reused passwords everywhere

If that same password unlocked other accounts, those are compromised too. Banking first, then shopping, then social.

5. Warn your people

Contacts may have received scam emails "from you." A quick heads-up stops your mother wiring money to a stranger.

6. Find out how it happened

A phishing email? A virus on the computer? A password used on a site that got breached? If you are not sure the computer itself is clean, deal with that before typing new passwords into it.