Has AOL Email Been Hacked?

Email accounts are the need of the hour because there is no single sector of work where an email address is not asked. The main use of an email address is seen in the official aspect of people’s lives. The exchange of official statements is done on the mailing platform, when you want to create an account on social media, your email address is asked, when you want to register somewhere on the internet, your email address is asked and the list goes on. Email accounts have become the most preferred channel of formal communication. 

One of the examples of such a formal channel is AOL Email. With an email attachment limit of 25 MB, AOL mail is a web-based mail service. It enables users to send and receive mails for free. The service to AOL mail is provided by AOL, which is a division of Verizon Communications. AOL had been working soundly, and was fulfilling its users' needs accordingly. Out of nowhere, AOL Email got hacked! What? Has AOL Email been hacked? 

Yes, AOL Email has been hacked. Thousands of people were complaining about the hacking of AOL Email on Twitter and then AOL confirmed the hack. After AOL email got hacked, a number of users reported that their account has been used to send spam to others. 

How to Recognize a Hacked AOL email Account? 

It is important for AOL to keep your account safe, and AOL tries hard to keep the account and information of its users safe. However, if you think that someone has entered the territory of your information and misusing it, then you must know what you need to do to protect your data and information. You must recognize the warning signs and what steps you must take to keep your information under safe dominion. 

• Signs that you have a hacked account-

1. You will not receive any mails.
2. Spam has been sent from your AOL account.
3. Even when you are signed in, you get bumped into being offline. 
4. You see a sign of Logins from unexpected locations on your recent activity page. 
5. Without your knowledge the account info and settings of your account has been changed. 
6. Even for the messages you didn’t even send, your inbox has been full of notices like MAILER-DAEMON.
7. The Address Book contacts of your account have been deleted or there might be new contacts you didn’t even add. 

• AOL mail settings needs to be reviewed-

People who have hacked your account might change the settings of AOL email account to get the copies of your emails or to interrupt your inbox. In this case you need to access mail settings of your account, and make sure that no information has been changed without your knowledge. What you need to review in your email settings- Email Filters, Display Name, Email Signature, Blocked Addresses and Mail Away Message. 

• Steps to secure your account if it has been hacked-

1. Your password needs to be changed immediately. 
2. If your mail settings were changed, revert them as soon as possible. 
3. Make sure that you have an antivirus software installed and updated in your phone or computer. 
4. Your recovery options must be up-to-date. 
5. You can consider enabling a two-step verification so that you can add an extra layer of security to your AOL email account. 

The controversy where people got to know that AOL account was hacked attracted a lot of criticism because information of thousands of people was at stake. AOL made sure that no one would get affected with the hacking of their AOL email accounts, but still accounts of thousands of people were misused. Therefore, it is important to keep your account safe, and to do that follow the above mentioned simple steps.  

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