Most people have a dozen alerts turned on across their email and banking accounts. Login notifications, password change alerts, transaction alerts, device alerts, weekly summaries...

And here's what happens: you stop reading any of them.

That's the real security risk — not having too few alerts, but having so many that you ignore the ones that matter.

After helping non-tech adults lock down their accounts, I've found there are really only three alerts you need to pay attention to immediately:

1. Unrecognized device sign-in

If someone logs into your email or bank from a device you don't recognize, that's the single most important alert you'll ever get. Everything else can wait. This one can't.

What to do: If you get this alert and it wasn't you, change your password immediately — email first, then banking.

2. Recovery info changed

If someone changes your recovery email, recovery phone number, or backup codes, they're setting up a way to lock you out later. Most people don't even know this alert exists.

What to do: Check your recovery settings right now. Make sure the phone number and email listed are ones you still control.

3. New forwarding rule or filter (email only)

This is the sneaky one. Attackers add a forwarding rule to silently copy your emails to themselves. You'd never know unless you check. No dramatic login. No password change. Just a quiet redirect.

What to do: Go to your email settings → Forwarding → make sure nothing is listed that you didn't set up.

Everything else?

Transaction alerts, weekly security summaries, marketing emails disguised as "security updates" — most of this is noise. Not useless, but not urgent.

The mistake most people make is treating every alert like a five-alarm fire. When everything is urgent, nothing is.

Start with these three. If you want a step-by-step system to sort all your alerts, choose only the protections that matter, and store your recovery info safely, I built a complete kit for that.