How Much Information Can Someone Get From Your Email Address?

Your email address can reveal a substantial amount of personal information including your full name, phone number, home address, place of work, social media profiles and other online accounts. 

Keep reading to learn what information someone can get from your email address, whether your identity can be stolen and how to keep your email address safe.

Information someone can get from your email address

From just your email address, someone can gain access to a variety of information. People can do this by using a reverse email search tool – where anyone can enter an email address online, sometimes at no cost – to see what information is associated with it. Here are some kinds of personal information someone can get about you just by knowing your email address:

• Full name
• Phone number
• Home address
• Place of employment
• Job title
• Social media profiles
• Online shopping accounts
• Online subscription services

Can your identity be stolen with only your email address?

If someone gathers enough information about you, your identity can be stolen with only your email address. Since many people’s email addresses contain names or birthdates, cybercriminals who have an email address with personal information in it can use that to gather other data about their target online. By using your email address and whatever other information they can find about you, a cybercriminal could search for your login credentials from data leaks posted on the dark web.

If they find any of your compromised login credentials, they can launch an email account takeover attack by locking you out of your account and then using your account to impersonate you. A cybercriminal could also pretend to be someone you know and trust to learn more about you by executing a phishing scam. After a cybercriminal has gathered enough information about you and compromised your login credentials, they could steal your identity by gaining access to your email address and other online accounts.

How to keep your email address safe

Even though it is highly unlikely that someone can learn enough about you to steal your identity through your email address alone, there are several things you can do to keep your email address out of the wrong hands.

Don’t use personal information in your email address

Most people use their full names or birthdates in their email addresses to separate themselves from others with similar names or taken usernames. However, you should not put any personal information in your email address because cybercriminals can learn more about you and your online activity. For example, if your name is John Smith and you were born on December 25, do not make your email address johnsmith1225@emailaddress.com. A cybercriminal can narrow down their search results using as much information as you provide to find your social media accounts or other online presence.

Secure your email account

Make sure to use a strong password for your email account. Your password should be at least 16 characters long and contain a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols. Having a strong password that is unique to your email account will make it harder for cybercriminals to guess your password and gain access to your email to commit identity theft.

You should also enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), which will require anyone attempting to log in to have your username, password and an additional form of verification before accessing your email account. Some examples of MFA could be a PIN, an answer to a security question, a code from an authenticator app, your fingerprint, facial recognition or your exact geographic location. MFA gives you an extra layer of security by requiring additional verification, so even if a cybercriminal learned your email address and password, they could not get in without your MFA.

Use a burner email account

You should use a burner email account when you want to subscribe to email newsletters or make an account on a website that seems suspicious. The main reason you want to do this is so your main email account remains unaffected and unassociated with your burner email account. That way, if a cybercriminal wanted to try to learn more information about you from your burner account, they would have nothing to go on. Burner email accounts help keep you safe because they separate your real and private information from an account with minimal information about you.

Don’t give out your main email address to just anyone

Giving out your main email address to anyone is a bad idea because you will receive more junk mail which can increase your risk of becoming a victim of scams. Once somebody knows your email address, nothing can stop them from signing your email address up for email newsletters or online services that you didn’t actually want. People can impersonate you and steal your identity by just knowing your email address, so it’s important to only share it with people you know and trust.

Be cautious of phishing emails

Keep your main email address safe by being cautious of phishing emails. In these emails, cybercriminals trick their victims into sharing personal information like login credentials by urging them to click a link or open an attachment. Once a victim has done so, the victim will be routed to a dangerous website or malware can infect their device and give the cybercriminal access to their information. To be safe, don’t open any unsolicited links or attachments – even if you think they are coming from someone you know – because a cybercriminal might be impersonating someone else to get you to share private information.

Protect your email address against cybercriminals

Your email address can lead to someone learning much more information about you than you intended, so it’s important to keep it safe from cybercriminals. Make sure to secure your email account with a strong and unique password.

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