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What is an
Account Takeover?
An account takeover is a situation where identity thieves, posing as you, take control over one or some of your personal accounts, including financial, medical, Internet, credit, and other types of accounts. They can achieve this by stealing and misusing your personally identifiable information such as your full name, contact details, address, SSN, DOB, phone number, email address, and other personally identifiable data.
Bank & Financial Accounts
One of the most important types of accounts you should protect from being taken over is your bank accounts. Identity thieves will try to steal your personal information such as your full name, phone number, email address, usernames, user IDs, SSN, passwords, driver’s license number, and other information to take control of your bank and other accounts.
Personal Email Accounts
Your personal email account could be taken over if identity thieves hack your account with information they stole from you, or information leaked, on purpose or accidentally, during one of the data breaches that your email provider experienced. Since your personal email account could contain a lot of personally identifiable information, it is essential to check your personal email account for any breaches to make sure you are still in control.
Phone Accounts
Your phone account may be hijacked after identity thieves use your stolen personal information to open a new phone account or take over an existing one to commit further fraud. Since a phone number is personally identifiable information, the criminals could use it to open several scam accounts associated with your identity to gain financial or other advantages.
Phished Identity, Profiles, & Passwords
Account takeovers happen when your identity details are phished or obtained in other fraudulent ways. Many scam websites pass themselves off as legitimate while trying to use phishing techniques to steal your personally identifiable information for identity theft or a financial scam. Any time you submit a form, your personal information could be intercepted if you are not careful. Some of the phished details could include your name, address, contact information, and other account details that you have provided.
Breached Identity Information
Breached accounts may lead to account takeovers. Identity thieves steal your personal information from public records by doing an account breach, where they hack the system and copy the secure databases to collect your personal details. Some of the types of breached account information may include an exposed personal profile with your full name, address, and contact information, as well as your phone and email records, account registration records, and personal information you provided before the breach occurred.
Credit Card Accounts
If identity thieves have your personally identifiable information, their easiest method of financial gain is your credit card accounts. It provides a quick financial score without repercussions because many people don’t notice until it’s too late. We strongly recommend that you scan your personal information for any breaches and exposure to make sure you are in control of your data and know what is available about you online.
IRS & Social Security Fraud
To gain access to your social security benefits or IRS refunds, identity thieves can use your SSN or other types of personally identifiable information. By impersonating you, using your tax ID or other information, thieves can attempt to receive Social Security benefits, retirement account dividends, and even IRS refunds. To ensure nothing suspicious is going on with your identity and personal profile, we strongly recommend that you scan your information, check all your available credit reports, and see how accurate they are and how much of your personal information is exposed.
Leaked & Hacked Account Details
It is very important to make sure that the information and public records that appear in your name online are accurate and contain no errors. If the records are inaccurate, have errors, or are incomplete, your identity may be at risk. Often the errors will propagate throughout the Internet, and you will end up with wrong information being attributed to your identity profile. To make sure this does not happen, we strongly recommend that you check your public records for any inaccuracies.
How Can I Protect Myself From an Account Takeover?
Personal Accounts Protection
Protect your personal accounts from being taken over and your records from being leaked after a data breach or hacked personal accounts. You can run one of our free scans to instantly verify if any of your personal information has been breached, leaked, or exposed and is available for the public to view. Enroll in our identity theft monitoring and protection service to keep an eye on your public records and keep your identity safe.
Secure Web Browsing
Account takeovers rarely happen if you are careful online and browse only trustworthy websites. Ensure you are using the Internet safely by only providing your personal information to accredited businesses and services that are verifiable to prevent identity theft. Before submitting any forms, verify the website is safe and secure. Never provide your social security number or birthdate online to keep identity thieves at bay.
Identity Profile & Account Monitoring
It is up to you to make sure that information that is publicly available about you is correct, complete, and current. Keeping an eye on that information is part of our identity theft protection and public profile security service. Keep your public records information secure by being in control of what is available about you.
Exposed Records Monitoring
Run one of our free scans to check and verify your public identity and your public records. We will be able to instantly inform you about what type and how many of your public records are available online and are potentially exposed for others to see. We look for combinations of your personally identifiable information such as your name, address, DOB, and other data to show you how much of your profile is currently exposed.
Check Your Public Records & Profile
You can sign up with our identity protection service, and we will monitor your public records and alert you if any new records have been posted or if we detect any changes to your existing public records. This will also help you keep an eye on what type of public records are available about you on the Internet, and you will be able to monitor that information with our service. It is very important that you monitor your public records because it may help prevent you from becoming the victim of identity theft.
Use Our Free Scans
We strongly recommend that you check public records sources by running one of our free scans, to see how much information from your public records is exposed to others. We will show you the information that is associated with your profile, and you will be able to verify the accuracy and content of the information. If any new public record is posted or if we detect a change in existing information, you will get an alert and will be able to see what has changed or what had been added to your identity profile.
Popular Questions About Account Takeovers
What are account takeovers?
Account takeovers are situations where identity thieves take control of personal accounts using stolen, hacked, breached, or exposed personal information about you. Account takeovers may lead to financial loss and other identity problems, and we strongly recommend that you regularly scan your information for breaches and exposures.
Can all account takeovers be prevented?
No service can protect from all financial scams, identity theft, and account takeovers, however, you will have the upper hand by having us monitor your personal profile to make sure you are notified if something suspicious is discovered about your information.
What type of records are needed to take over an account?
Identity thieves only need a few pieces of personally identifiable information about you to perform an account takeover. They can use your date of birth, your full name and address, your email or phone accounts, your SSN, or other critical information to pose as you and open, modify, take over, or benefit from your accounts in some other way.
How can I find out if my account was taken over?
We recommend that you run one of our free scans to see what type of information is breached or exposed about you. Make sure to check your credit score and your latest credit reports to verify that no additional accounts have been opened in your name and that you do not have any recent credit inquiries from places that you do not recognize or did not authorize.
What to do if my account was taken over?
Immediately notify the account issuer and let them know you are no longer in control of your account. Put an account activity freeze or hold on your account to prevent any more unauthorized activity. Also, notify authorities if you suspect you may be experiencing an account breach, and you are in danger of financial loss.
Can you help monitor for an account takeover?
We do not specifically monitor for account takeovers, but we do provide you with monitoring service that will check if any of your personal information was involved in a breach or is considered exposed, so you can verify that all the details are correct and that no suspicious activity in regards to your accounts is taking place.
Can exposure of my personal details lead to account takeover?
Yes, exposed personal details such as name, DOB, phone number, email account, username, user ID, social media profiles, relatives, associates, employment, education, and other types of personally identifiable data may lead to an account takeover.
Can credit monitoring help prevent an account takeover?
No monitoring service can prevent all account takeovers, but credit monitoring will give you an advantage by checking, verifying, and identifying what types of personal information could be compromised by looking at recent accounts and inquiries and monitoring any changes to your credit score or available credit lines.
Is an account takeover a serious problem?
Yes, any personal account takeovers are very serious. The identity thieves could try to use your information and accounts to scam you and enrich themselves by fraudulently opening, modifying, or transacting within stolen or breached accounts for the purposes of financial gain.
What types of accounts can be a target for a takeover?
Many types of personal accounts that contain private information about you could be subject to attempted takeovers by identity thieves. Some examples are accounts that use or are connected to your full name and location, phone accounts, email address accounts, usernames, user IDs, accounts that use your SSN, accounts that include stolen passwords, and other compromised identities incidents.