How to Secure a Deceased Family Member's Online Accounts

When someone dies, their online accounts do not close themselves, and every day they stay open is a window for fraud. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the federal agency that protects consumers from unfair and deceptive business practices and investigates identity theft, warns that thieves specifically target the identities of people who have recently died. Credit bureaus and government agencies take time to update their records after a death, and that lag is exactly what the thieves are counting on.

Deceased account identification, the process of finding every account the person held and securing or closing each one in the right order, closes most of that window before it becomes a problem. This guide covers what to secure first, the documents you need, how Google, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft handle a deceased user's account, and the scams that specifically target grieving families in 2026.

Identity thieves look for records that are technically valid but temporarily unwatched, and a death creates exactly that gap. According to the FTC's identitytheft.gov guidance, someone who has a deceased person's Social Security number, date of birth, and address can open credit cards, apply for loans, or file a tax return in that person's name.

Fraud prevention groups call this practice "ghosting." Because the account holder can't review a statement or respond to a fraud alert, the activity can go unnoticed for months, often until an executor sorts through the estate.

The same gap affects older relatives who are still living. If you're also managing accounts for an aging parent, the same order of operations, secure email first, then financial accounts, then everything else, applies to protecting elderly parents from online scams and identity theft.

A credit freeze restricts access to a credit report, which stops most lenders from approving new accounts, and it's one of the more effective steps you can take for a deceased family member's file. The process differs slightly from freezing a living person's credit, since bureaus typically require a death certificate and a copy of your ID as the person requesting the freeze.

The executor or administrator of the estate is generally responsible for filing the deceased person's final federal income tax return. IRS Publication 559, Survivors, Executors, and Administrators, outlines the filing requirements and the documentation the IRS expects from an estate representative.

Sending the IRS a copy of the death certificate as part of that process is a reasonable extra step toward reducing the chance of a fraudulent return being filed in the deceased taxpayer's name, though the agency doesn't promise it will prevent every attempt.

Every provider asks for slightly different proof, but plan to gather these before you start calling: certified death certificates, your government-issued ID, and proof of legal authority such as letters testamentary (the court document naming you as executor), letters of administration, or a notarized affidavit of next of kin, depending on the state and the account.

Some platforms will accept a death certificate alone to close an account; others, especially email providers, may require a court order before releasing the account's actual contents rather than simply closing it. If a provider asks for legal documentation you don't have, an estate attorney familiar with your state's probate process can tell you what's actually required. This isn't legal advice, since probate rules vary by state.

Digital assets deserve the same attention as bank accounts. Cryptocurrency held in a personal wallet generally cannot be recovered by an exchange without the private keys or seed phrase, so locate that information early.

While you're handling the deceased person's accounts, it's a reasonable time to tighten your own, since reused passwords across a family's accounts are a common way one compromise spreads to another. Someone who gains control of a family member's phone number can also attempt a SIM swap to intercept verification codes on other accounts; our guide to protecting against SIM swap attacks covers how to lock down a mobile carrier account.