How much analysis does each email actually get?
Every message — not a sample — gets the full workup: sender authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) and whether this sender has written to this inbox before; every link unwrapped and followed through its redirects; attachments opened and read, including the text inside PDFs and any QR codes they carry; malware scanning; and language analysis weighted for the scams actually aimed at that person. Anything that looks off gets a second, deeper AI analysis, and anything serious goes to an experienced security professional — a working Cyber Security Architect with incident-response experience — before an alert ever reaches you. We also watch the mailbox itself for takeover signs: new forwarding rules and changed security settings.
What if an account or inbox has already been compromised?
You reach a person with real incident-response experience, not a ticket queue. We help triage what happened, answer your questions, and walk you through remediation step by step — securing the account, revoking the attacker's access, closing forwarding rules, and what to tell your bank or family. Our access stays read-only, so you (or your IT provider) make the changes with us on the line, which means you never hand control of the account to anyone — including us.
Do you read what is inside a PDF attachment, or just scan it for viruses?
We read it. Many scams aimed at older adults arrive as a clean PDF - a fake invoice, Medicare statement or antivirus renewal - with no link and no malware, just a phone number. A virus scanner correctly marks that file clean, because it is harmless; the harm happens on the phone call afterwards. We extract the text inside the attachment and judge it as we judge the message body, and we read QR codes inside PDFs and follow where they point.
Can you catch a scam sent from a real account that passes every security check?
Yes. SPF, DKIM and DMARC prove a message came from the domain it claims, and we run all three, but they answer whether the sender is who they say they are - not whether the message is safe. When a criminal takes over a real account and replies inside a real thread with new wire instructions, every check passes. We weigh what the message asks for, how it wants to be paid, and whether that sender has written to this inbox before.
Can Family Sentinel send, delete, or change my email?
No — and not because we promise not to. The read-only permission we request doesn't include the ability to send, delete, or edit anything, and Google and Microsoft enforce that at the account level.
Can you detect AI-written attacks, voice-clone and deepfake lures?
Yes. Most scam emails are now written by AI — perfect grammar and warm personalization are no longer proof a message is safe. Our analysis judges intent, not spelling, and specifically watches for deepfake voicemail and video-message lures, QR-code phishing, and AI-personalized impersonation that uses real family names and details.
Do I need to be tech-savvy to set this up?
No. If you can log into your email, you can do this. Setup takes about 15 minutes through the same Google or Microsoft sign-in you already use, and white-glove setup means we're with you the whole time.
Does a human read every message?
No. Automated analysis screens messages for threat signals. A real Security Architect looks at a message only when it's been flagged as a serious threat — to verify it before your family is alerted.
Could this ever break my email or lock me out of my account?
No. Your mailbox keeps working exactly as it does today — nothing about how you send, receive, or sign in changes. If you disconnected us tomorrow, you would not notice a difference.