Breaking into a secured system is a serious criminal offense and this includes someone’s email account. Not all exploitation of email account involved forcible entry however. Breaching someone’s trust or stealing a password to access their email account is an equally serious matter.
Worse is using that account to gain the trust of another, under false pretenses. There is a number of reasons why this will happen, generally to induce information from another party or scamming funds under the guise of a trusted acquaintance.
Gaining access to an email account might involve the use of key logger and other “malware” that will record the activities of the user. This, along with inevitable prosecution for fraud, will involve investigation from the federal government. Email hijacking is usually easy to detect when used for the purposes of fraud and countermeasures do exist to prevent and notify legitimate owners of unauthorized access.
Those who steal or use an email account for fraudulent reasons resulting in monetary loss to the victim will inevitably be ordered to pay restitution to victims and sometimes even serve prison time.
If you have used another individual’s email account for financial gain and are now facing criminal charges in New York because of that, you will need a New York computer crimes lawyer to manage your legal defense. Call us today at 212 577 6677 for a consultation.