The Dangers of an Email Account Breach

A single email account breach can cost your business’s reputation and clients thousands, exposing sensitive information and creating opportunities for financial fraud. Understanding the dangers and implementing protective measures is essential for all businesses.

An email account breach, often called an email account takeover, occurs when an unauthorised person gains access to a legitimate business email account. Unlike identity theft, which creates new accounts in someone else’s name, email account takeovers exploit existing trust between your business and clients, suppliers, or partners. Attackers commonly use phishing emails, stolen credentials, or weak passwords to manipulate communications, making fraudulent requests appear genuine and highly convincing. Once inside, the attacker can monitor conversations, gather sensitive data, and impersonate the account holder to commit fraud.

What Happens During a Breach

When an attacker gains access to your business email, they can send messages to clients, suppliers, or colleagues that appear genuine. One of the most damaging scenarios is when a hacker sends an email instructing a client to change bank details for a payment. The client, trusting the email’s legitimacy, transfers funds directly to the attacker’s account. Beyond the financial loss, your business faces reputational harm as clients question the security of your communication systems.

The Risks and Consequences of an Email Account Breach

1. Financial Fraud and Unauthorised Transactions

Attackers can impersonate your business, sending instructions for clients to transfer funds to unauthorised accounts or changing bank details on invoices. Even a single successful transaction can result in substantial financial loss, and undoing these errors can be complex and time-consuming.

2. Theft of Sensitive Information

Email accounts often contain confidential client details, contracts, pricing information, and personal data. Compromised accounts can expose this information to cybercriminals, increasing the risk of identity theft, regulatory penalties, or contractual disputes.

3. Reputational Damage

A breached email account can be used to send phishing emails, malware, or misleading communications to clients and colleagues. This can undermine client confidence, create distrust in your business, and damage long-term relationships that took years to build.

4. Operational Disruption

Investigating a breach, regaining control of accounts, and addressing client concerns can divert internal resources away from day-to-day operations. Businesses often face delays, added costs, and internal strain while attempting to recover.

5. Expanded Risk to Other Systems

Attackers may use compromised email credentials to attempt access to connected platforms, such as cloud storage, financial software, or collaboration tools. Without managed security measures, a breach in one account can escalate into wider operational risk.

Immediate Actions for an Email Breach

The first step is to contact your IT support team or email provider immediately. Swift action from experts is critical to limit the impact. They will work to secure the account and prevent further fraudulent emails from being sent from the breached email account. You should notify any clients or contacts who may have received fraudulent emails so they can take precautionary steps. Time is critical to limit the damage and prevent further unauthorised activity. Your IT support provider should investigate how the email breach occurred, and make recommendations to help prevent it from happening again in the future.

Preventing Email Account Breaches

Proactive steps can significantly reduce the risk of an email account breach. Important steps that all businesses should take are:

• Advanced Email Security: Advanced Email Security solutions analyse both inbound and outbound emails in real time, detecting phishing, malware, and business email compromise attempts. This monitoring helps to prevent harmful messages from reaching staff and ensures that compromised accounts cannot be used to distribute malicious emails to clients.
• Employee Cyber Security Training: Staff are often the first line of defence. Training employees helps them to recognise phishing attempts, avoid suspicious links or attachments, and manage sensitive information securely. Well-informed staff are significantly less likely to fall victim to account takeover attempts.
• Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): MFA adds an additional verification step, requiring a second form of authentication, such as a text code or app-based approval. Even if a password is stolen, MFA can help prevent unauthorised access, reducing the likelihood of account compromise.
• Conditional Access Policies: Conditional Access allows businesses to define rules for accessing email accounts, such as restricting sign-ins by location, device type, or network. This reduces risk by ensuring accounts can only be accessed in trusted environments, making it harder for attackers to exploit stolen credentials.
• Managed IT Services: Expert management of IT systems provides continuous monitoring, timely security updates, and rapid response to potential threats. Managed services also ensure that policies like MFA, Conditional Access, and advanced email security are correctly implemented and maintained.

Email account breaches can have wide-reaching consequences. Managing email systems through an experienced IT or cyber security provider ensures that updates, monitoring, and incident response are handled promptly. Having experts oversee your email infrastructure helps prevent security gaps and ensures a quick response if a breach occurs.

Carrera provide managed IT and cyber security services that help businesses reduce the risks associated with email account breaches. Our advanced email security solutions analyse inbound and outbound emails in real time to help identify threats and prevent malicious messages from reaching your staff or clients. Combined with employee training and managed IT support, this approach strengthens your business’s resilience against account takeover attempts and other cyber threats. Contact us to secure your business’s emails to protect your reputation, and your clients’ data.

Carrera UK provide IT support, IT services, and telecoms to small businesses in Portsmouth & Southampton in Hampshire, and across the South of England.

We offer a complete suite of IT and telecoms service solutions for small and medium-sized businesses, including IT support, cyber security, email and Microsoft 365 services, VoIP business phones, and lease IT equipment.

We know how important IT is to your business and we will work hard as your trusted IT and telecom service provider to find the best solutions for you. Our IT support and solutions give you the assurance that your business technology will be robust, reliable, and cost-effective.