What makes your e-mail valuable to cyber criminals?

Your e-mails are interconnected to everything, such as, banking accounts which includes your sensitive credentials, social media accounts where you share your as well as your family and friends’ pictures and online shopping accounts where your credit card details, residential address and contact numbers are saved.

Also, most of us maintain the similar email address as username to multiple accounts. Now imagine, when cyber criminals hack your e-mail address and password, they gain control of all your sensitive personal information, which can harm you in many ways.

Cyber criminals not only use your personal data to impersonate you but also put your data up in the dark web for sale.

What are the potential threats to your digital identity if your e-mail gets hacked?

1.Confidential conversations and attachments.

Your e-mail inbox may contain your personal conversation and confidential attachments, such as, your resume you sent to any recruiter or the copies of your identity proof you sent to your friend for whatsoever purpose. Such documents contain your all personal information, which, upon going in the wrong hands can highly damage your identity.

2.Photos of you or your family members.

Most of us share photos of our recent trip or weekend outing or just a random selfie on various social media platforms. Also, many people post pictures of their family members, including kids, which reveals a lot about their family background and eventually makes it easy for identity thieves to decide their next target. A thief can misuse your pictures in many ways which not only puts your identity at risk, but it also affects your children and your loved ones.

3.Financial information.

Nothing is as priceless as getting control of anyone’s sensitive financial information, for an identity thief.  May it be the scanned copy of your bank statement you sent to your insurance agent or the copy of your PAN card you sent to your tax consultant, an identity thief can ruin your financial stability to a great extent by stealing even the smallest piece of your data. It also negatively impacts your credit score.

4.Order confirmation of your online purchase.

In this digital age, we all prefer to buy things on one click rather than to physically step out and visit the store. However convenient it may be for you, for a cyber criminal it is the golden opportunity. Your order confirmations and invoices contain your billing address, contact details and most importantly your credit card details. It is more than enough for an identity thief to compromise your identity.

5.Passwords.

Passwords open the doors for identity thieves. Once your password is hacked or breached, cyber criminals can easily access your various accounts as many of us maintain the similar password for multiple accounts and go months and months without changing it.

To avoid all potential threats to your identity it is important to invest in best cyber fraud and digital identity theft protection program.