What should I do if my email address has been leaked onto the dark web?

Question

What should I do if my email address has been leaked onto the dark web?

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I received an email from Equifax more than twice now that my email address with my 365 outlook personal account has been found on the dark web. I have tried using Microsoft defender to solve the problem but this hasn't done much. I get constant junk mail and once my email was hacked.

The issue is I do not want to loose this email address because I've had it for over 20 years and I have already started to migrate most of my logins and other usernames to another address, but I may still need this email address to get into old user accounts I could be locked out of or respond to someone by email who doesn't know I've switched. It is of course a hotmail email address so that is probably why it gets so much junk. I am just looking to have it removed from the dark web and stop getting so much junk mail to have better protection.

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2 answers

Answer 1

Hello! My name is Nazia.

Unfortunately, you cannot take your email address off the dark web, but that doesn't mean you can't prevent someone from accessing your account.

For safety measures, I suggest you to change your password first, use a strong password with special characters.

Also, enable two-step verification for your account, so that if an unauthorized person get your password, he or she will never get the code that you'll receive via email or phone for the second verification step, for more information see this page:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/account-bil...

I would like to share a third-party article I found on web for the same, please check this link for more information:

https://www.makeuseof.com/email-address-leaked-...

Disclaimer:

This is a Third-Party/Non-Microsoft link which would provide accurate and safe information. Watch out for ads on the site which are frequently classified as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). Just follow the instructions/steps given and there is no need to buy paid or free products to fix your computers as they do more harm than good sometimes.

Kindly Note: This is an open forum for user-to-user support. Staff members of Microsoft Support do not manage this forum. Everybody in this place is assisting other people. Users of this forum are not employees of Microsoft, and we have no influence on its policies, operations, or data.

Regards,

Nazia

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Answer 2

What you can do:

change your password
enable 2 factor authentication
or completely stop using that particular hotmail account or delete it entirely (if you don't need it anymore)

What you can not do:

remove your "leaked" email address from dark web
stop spam completely

I'm not sure what you meant by "using Microsoft Defender to solve problem". What problem do you expect Microsoft Defender to solve?

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What should I do if my email address has been leaked onto the dark web?

2 answers