Losing access to any of your digital accounts can be very stressful, and if it’s an account you need for work this can be doubly the case.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) produces guidance that can help the self-employed and sole traders as well as any individual recover a hacked account.

First, how can you tell if you’ve been hacked?

Sometimes it’s obvious because you are unable to log into your accounts or an unauthorised purchase or money transfer’s been made. But other telltale signs include:

  • changes being made to your security settings,
  • receiving messages or notifications from your account that you don’t recognise, and
  • records of logins from strange places or at unusual times. Look out for telltale signs in your online accounts.

The NCSC lists the following steps to take so you can recover your account:

  1. Contact your account provider.
  2. Check your email account.
  3. Change passwords.
  4. Log all devices and apps out of your account.
  5. Set up 2-step verification.
  6. Update your devices.
  7. Notify your contacts.
  8. Check your bank statements and online shopping accounts.
  9. Contact Action Fraud.

More detail on what these steps involve can be found in the guidance.

See: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/recovering-a-hacked-account