How Can Scammers Use Your Email Address?

Updated on January 8, 2024.

If a scammer knows just your email address, they can send you phishing emails, access your accounts, steal your personal information and use it for email spoofing. With just your email address, cybercriminals can gain unauthorized access to your personal information.

Continue reading to learn more about how scammers use your email address, how scammers get a hold of your email address and how you can prevent scammers from exploiting your email address. 

Why Do Cybercriminals Want My Email Address?

Cybercriminals want your email address to trick you and others into giving up personal information. Here are the ways cybercriminals can exploit your email address.

Send you phishing emails

Knowing your email address, cybercriminals can send you targeted phishing emails to steal your personal information. Phishing is a type of social engineering attack in which cybercriminals send messages to trick victims into giving up their personal information such as their login credentials and credit card numbers. 

During a phishing attempt, cybercriminals send you emails that impersonate a familiar face, such as a work colleague or a reputable business. The email either has a malicious attachment or a link for you to click on. Once you click on the link, you either download malware on your device or are directed to a spoofed website. The spoofed website will then prompt you to give up your personal information.

Access your accounts

Many email addresses are used as usernames to gain access to many different online accounts. If a cybercriminal gets a hold of your email address, they have half of your login credentials. Cybercriminals can try to guess your password based on your public information or execute a brute force attack to gain access to your accounts.

A brute force attack is a type of cyber attack in which cybercriminals use trial and error to guess your login credentials. Cybercriminals use programs that input common dictionary words or specific letter and number combinations until they get a match. This type of cyber attack relies on victims reusing their passwords or creating weak, short and easily predictable passwords.

Steal your personal information

If a cybercriminal gains unauthorized access to your accounts through phishing or password-related attacks, they can steal your personal information. Cybercriminals will try to take over your email account which holds much of your personal information and access to other online accounts. 

When a cybercriminal steals your personal information, it can often lead to identity theft. Identity theft is when someone steals and uses your Personally Identifiable Information (PII) to impersonate you and commit fraud and other types of crime.

Use for email spoofing

Email spoofing is a type of cyber threat in which a cybercriminal sends emails to potential victims using a fake sender address. Cybercriminals forge a sender’s address to make it look like it’s coming from a legitimate person or company. 

Email spoofing can be used to carry out phishing attacks and trick users into thinking they are getting an email from their friends or a legitimate company. Cybercriminals can reference your email address to create a similar-looking, fake email address and trick your friends and family into giving up their personal information.

How Cybercriminals Get Your Email Address

Cybercriminals use a variety of methods to get your email address. Here are a few of the common ways cybercriminals can get your email address.

Data leaks

Data leaks are when sensitive data gets unintentionally exposed from within an organization. An organization can accidentally leak data through poor information storage, social engineering attacks and software vulnerabilities. Data leaks can reveal sensitive information to cybercriminals such as employee and customer email addresses, personally identifiable information, birthdates, addresses and more.

Email harvesting

Email harvesting is a process of collecting a large amount of email addresses through various means. Cybercriminals harvest emails using bots to crawl through the internet and gather as many email addresses as possible. The bots will obtain email addresses by purchasing email lists, finding them on public platforms and online directories, and hacking a website’s databases.

People search sites

People search sites are websites that collect, publish and sell your personal information. They are a type of data broker that collects data from public records, public forums or information posted on social media. Cybercriminals can buy your email address and other personal information from people search sites and use it for targeted cyber attacks.

Spoofed website

Cybercriminals will create fake websites to trick people into giving up their personal information such as their email addresses. These fake websites either portray themselves as legitimate or impersonate a reputable company. The fake website is then promoted on social media, sent via phishing attacks, promoted through malicious ads or found on search engines. When a user visits the fake website, they are prompted to provide their email address. 

Man-in-the-middle attacks

Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacks are a type of cyber attack in which cybercriminals intercept data between two exchanging parties. MITM attacks rely on unsecured networks, like fabricated or public WiFi networks, which allow cybercriminals to eavesdrop, steal or modify any transmitted data. If a user connects to an unencrypted WiFi network, cybercriminals can steal their data such as their email address.

How To Prevent Scammers From Exploiting Your Email Address

It can be difficult to keep your email address away from scammers. However, practicing good cyber hygiene can prevent scammers from using your email address to gain unauthorized access to your accounts and personal information. Here are some of the ways you can prevent scammers from exploiting your email address.

Avoid clicking on suspicious attachments and links

Cybercriminals try to gain unauthorized access to your accounts by sending you phishing emails with malicious attachments or links. Clicking on a malicious link will either download malware on your device or trick you into giving up your personal information. You should avoid clicking on suspicious attachments or links from unsolicited emails to prevent cybercriminals from exploiting your email address and gaining unauthorized access to your online accounts.

Use a password manager

A password manager is a tool that securely stores and manages your personal information in a digital vault. With a password manager, you can manage and access all of your login credentials to your online accounts inside your digital vault. Your digital vault is protected by encryption and can only be accessed with a strong master password. 

A password manager can help prevent cybercriminals from exploiting your email address and gaining unauthorized access to your online accounts. It identifies any weak login credentials and prompts you to strengthen them. Using the autofill feature, password managers also prevent your login credentials from automatically filling on spoofed websites.

Be careful with whom you share your email

You should be careful with whom you share your email address. Try to limit the number of accounts that connect to your email address. Use separate email accounts for private use and public use. Only provide your email address to credible organizations and close friends or family members. Avoid signing up for email lists and verify any unknown senders to prevent cybercriminals from stealing your email address. 

Enable MFA

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is a security protocol that requires users to provide additional authentication. To gain access to an account, a user must provide their login credentials along with an additional form of identification. MFA provides an extra layer of protection to your online accounts and prevents unauthorized users from accessing them. Even if a cybercriminal has your login credentials, they will not have access to your account since they cannot verify your identity without the additional factor.

Protect Your Email Address From Scammers With Keeper®

To prevent scammers from using your email address to gain access to your accounts, you need to protect your online accounts with strong and unique passwords. A password manager is the best way to ensure you are using strong and unique passwords for all of your accounts. Keeper Security offers a password manager that is protected by zero-trust and zero-knowledge encryption. Sign up for a free trial of Keeper Password Manager to protect your email address from scammers.