Email as the master key

What you'll get from this chapter: Why your email account is the master key to everything else you own online, and the four habits that keep it in your hands.

Part I: Internet Survival Kit · Chapter 2 of 7

Last reviewed: October 18, 2026

The person who controls your email can reset the password on almost every other account you own.

Business email compromise, a fake email that looks like it came from a vendor, a boss, or a payroll office, cost $3.05 billion in 2025 from about 25,000 complaints. That is roughly $123,000 per report. The attack is simple: a message asks someone to change where a payment is sent.¹

Spam filters catch a lot. They do not catch a well-aimed note written by an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that already knows your name and a recent invoice.

Before we lock the accounts themselves, one popular tool needs clearing up: the virtual private network. The next chapter explains what it does and what it does not do.