What Happens If Your Email Is Found On The Dark Web?

Should You Worry If Your Email Is on the Dark Web?

If your email is leaked to the Dark Web after a data breach, hackers can use it to target you with phishing scams or uncover more leaked sensitive information about you — including passwords and financial information.

In the past year, 11% of Americans had their email or social media accounts hacked and taken over.

Unfortunately, you won’t be able to remove your email once it’s on the Dark Web. Instead, you should follow these steps to secure your accounts and protect yourself from scams:

• Update your accounts with unique and complex passwords
• Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) whenever possible
• Check your financial statements for signs of fraud
• Freeze or lock your credit, if needed
• Do a full Dark Web scan to check for other exposed data

A leaked email address doesn’t always put you in immediate danger — but it can lead to more serious threats, including hacking and identity theft, if you don’t act on it.

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What Are the Risks of Having Your Email on the Dark Web?

Hackers use the Dark Web to anonymously share, sell, and trade sensitive information that can be used to target victims with hacking, fraud, and identity theft. If your email address is circulating on the Dark Web, it’s most likely due to a data breach.

In 2024 alone, hackers breached databases at National Public Data (NPD), Ticketmaster, Change Healthcare, AT&T, and more — leaking billions of records including usernames, passwords, email addresses, and other sensitive data.

While your email address alone may not put you at immediate risk, it can be the launching point for other scams and threats.

If your email is on the Dark Web, hackers can:

• Build an “attack profile” of you using leaked data about you. Scammers can use your leaked email address to tie together leaked data on the Dark Web and create a fuller profile of you — including your address, phone number, Social Security number (SSN), and even financial data.
• Target your with advanced phishing emails and other scams. Your email address can be a point of contact for all sorts of advanced phishing attacks. Once scammers have more information about you, they’ll use it to create believable scams that get you to act.  
• Gain access to your workplace email or network. Many hackers are after access to work systems, as they can sell that data or extort businesses for millions of dollars.
• Spoof your email to scam your friends, family, and coworkers. Scammers can also use your email to find out where you work and live, and then spoof your email address in imposter scams targeting your acquaintances.
• Hack into your email account and blackmail you with personal information. If a data breach has leaked your passwords, hackers could gain access to your email account and either use it for scams or mine it for sensitive information and photos they can use to extort you for money.
• Steal your identity. In the worst case scenario, your leaked email address can lead scammers to enough personal information to steal your identity, empty your bank account, or take out loans in your name.

How To Find Out If Your Email Is on the Dark Web

While most companies are legally required to send out data breach notifications to impacted customers, there are other ways to proactively see if your email was part of a recent leak.

Free Dark Web scanners from services like Aura and HaveIBeenPwned can tell you if your email has been leaked in a data breach. But they’re limited in how much of your personal information they can track — for example, they won’t tell you if your SSN or credit card information was leaked in a data breach.

For more extensive monitoring, fast alerts, and dedicated support, you’ll want to sign up for a 24/7 Dark Web monitoring service that will send you notifications if your more sensitive data was leaked.

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What To Do If Your Email Is on the Dark Web

If you know your email has been leaked, take steps to secure your compromised accounts, freeze your credit, and reduce the amount of publicly available information about you.

1. Change your passwords

If you use the same email address to sign up for multiple accounts and services, scammers can use your leaked address to find more information about you on the Dark Web — and discover other, more sensitive compromised accounts.

Update all of your passwords to make them:

• Unique: Ensure that each password is only used for one account. This will prevent a single leak from giving scammers access to multiple accounts.
• Long: Create passwords that include at least 10–13 characters in order to protect against brute force attacks.
• Complex: Combine uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols so that your passwords are harder for hackers to guess or crack.

A password manager makes creating and storing unique passwords much easier, as you’ll only need to remember one single, secure master password to access your login credentials for any site.

💡 Related: How Do Password Managers Work? →

2. Enable 2FA on all of your online accounts

One of the best ways to block scammers from gaining access to online accounts is to enable two- or multi-factor authentication (2FA or MFA). This is an additional layer of security that requires a secondary form of authentication before you can log in to an account — such as a special code sent to your phone.

With 2FA enabled, scammers need more than just your password to access an account. This cybersecurity measure is often enough to cause them to give up and move on to the next target.

Pro tip: Use an authenticator app, such as Authy or Google Authenticator. Scammers can use what’s called a SIM swap attack to gain access to your phone number and intercept 2FA codes sent there. An authenticator app is much more secure.

3. Review your account statements and freeze your credit reports

Scammers may try to use your email address to gain access to your bank accounts, credit, or other financial accounts. Review your statements regularly for suspicious activity after a data breach.

You can also get free copies of your credit reports from all three bureaus — Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion — by visiting AnnualCreditReport.com (or after submitting a fraud alert or credit freeze request).

It’s also probably a good idea to freeze your credit with all of the bureaus. A credit freeze is a free service that blocks anyone from accessing your credit files, and can potentially shut down fraudsters who try to open accounts or take out loans in your name.

To freeze your credit, you’ll need to contact each of the three credit bureaus individually:

💡 Related: What To Do If You’ve Been Scammed Out Of Money →

4. Do a full Dark Web scan to see what other information was leaked

A free Dark Web scanner can give you an idea of which email addresses and passwords have been compromised — but it won’t tell you what other sensitive data of yours may be circulating on the Dark Web.

Aura’s Dark Web monitoring service will constantly monitor hacker forums and illicit marketplaces for your personal data — including credit card numbers, bank account details, SSNs, and tax information.

5. File reports with the proper authorities

Depending on what you find in your full Dark Web scan, you’ll want to report compromises to the proper authorities.

• Report identity theft to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Leaked sensitive data can lead to identity theft. File an online report with the FTC at IdentityTheft.gov to get a free recovery plan and proof that you’re a victim.
• Report SSN theft to the Social Security Administration (SSA). Create an account with the SSA to review claimed earnings and warn you if someone may be using your SSN.
• Report driver’s license leaks to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). If your driver’s license information or a scan of your license was leaked, you’ll want to contact the DMV and ask for a “Verify ID” flag on your driver record. This informs law enforcement that your identity has been compromised or stolen.‍
• Report passport fraud to the State department. You can contact Travel.state.gov to report passport fraud. Complete the DS-64 form to report a lost or stolen passport, and the DS-11 form to apply for a new United States passport.

6. Clean up your online footprint

Hackers can use your leaked email address to uncover more information about you — both on the Dark Web and in publicly available places like social media and data brokers.

Here are a few ways you can reduce your online footprint:

Be extremely intentional about what you share on social media. You should also restrict your privacy settings on your social media accounts and remove sensitive information from search engines.

• Tighten your social media privacy settings. Limit who can view your profile and posts to just close friends and don’t accept unknown people as friend requests.
• Remove your information from data brokers. Data brokers scrape publicly available information and create profiles on people — and then sell them to marketers or even scammers. You can manually opt out of most data brokers, but with hundreds of them in the U.S. alone, it’s a better idea to sign up for an automated data broker removal service.
• Use fake information and guest accounts when possible. This can “poison” the data that hackers find out about you online by mixing real and fake information together.
• Use an email alias. An email alias is a secondary email account that routes to your primary inbox. When signing up for new accounts or filling out surveys or applications, this option lets you protect your primary address — and avoid risking the security of any linked accounts and information. Some email providers, such as Gmail, allow you to create aliases by modifying your email address to alternatives such as youremail+some-alias@gmail.com.
• Remove sensitive information from Google. If your contact information appears in Google search results, you can request its removal.

7. Consider signing up for identity theft protection

If you’ve completed all of these steps but still feel like you need more security, an identity theft protection provider like Aura can help put your mind at ease.

Aura combines award-winning identity theft protection and three-bureau credit monitoring with robust Dark Web monitoring, digital security tools to protect against malware and hacking, 24/7 U.S.-based support, and up to $5 million in insurance coverage against eligible expenses and losses due to identity theft.

Here are a few things that Aura can do for you:

• Monitor the Dark Web for any leaked personal data. Aura uses artificial intelligence (AI) to scan millions of pages, forums, and marketplaces on the Dark Web. You’ll receive fast Dark Web alerts in near real-time if any of your personal information has been leaked.
• Monitor public records for your name, driver’s license, SSN, and other sensitive information. With Aura, you’ll be able to quickly find out if cybercriminals are using your identity or if your SSN is on the Dark Web.
• Remove your personal details from data broker lists. Data brokers collect and sell your data, which is often how it falls into the hands of scammers. Aura checks hundreds of broker databases — and requests that your personal information be removed.
• Protect you against hacking and phishing scams. Every Aura plan includes advanced digital security tools — including powerful antivirus software, a military-grade virtual private network (VPN), password manager, phishing link alerts, and more.

Best of all, you can try Aura free for 14 days to scan the Dark Web, protect against hacking and phishing attacks, and see if it’s right for you.

Can You Remove Your Email Address From the Dark Web?

Unfortunately, no. Once your email address has been leaked, there’s really no way to remove it from the Dark Web.

The best thing you can do is understand exactly what information has been compromised and then take action to update your online security — such as by creating new, strong passwords and enabling 2FA.

💡 Related: How To Remove Your Information From the Dark Web →

The Bottom Line: Keep Your Personal Information Off of the Dark Web

Data breaches have become common news stories in recent years — but just because your email and other data may already be leaked, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t protect more from making its way on to the Dark Web.

Tighten your privacy settings, make sure you use strong and unique passwords, turn on a VPN when on public Wi-Fi, and try not to store financial and sensitive data with too many online services.

Then, consider signing up for Aura to help warn you if your identity and sensitive data has been compromised.