Email Hacking

As the Internet has grown, email hacking has become a more common problem and one that both Internet service providers (ISPs) and law enforcement continue to fight. Because email is considered private information, email hacking can be a criminal offense and is defined as unauthorized use of an email account. Here's how emails can be hacked, and the punishment that can befall the hacker, if caught.

Social Engineering

Considered almost an art among hackers, social engineering is a scam combining psychological and computer skills. Simply, it is the process whereby a hacker convinces an Internet user via email that she is corresponding with someone she can trust. The hacker asks the victim to email personal information to an untraceable address, usually under the guise of checking security.
If caught, the hacker can lose his email account and, if he does perpetuate a financial crime as a result of the hack, can be arrested and prosecuted for fraud.

Workplace Sabotage
Some of the most grievous cases of email hacking happen in the workplace. In one such case an information systems manager for an organ donation database was fired and was able to hack into her email account and maliciously delete important data before the company locked her account. She was arrested, tried and convicted of unauthorized computer use and was sentenced to two years in prison.

General Sentencing Guidelines
While the most common penalty is loss of email account services, in some instances fines, prison sentences and a combination of these two penalties can result from successful prosecution of email hacking. Sentences range from a $5,000 fine for one instance of unauthorized access to twenty years in prison for multiple offenses involving multiple victims and damage greater than $1 million.