Google just reported a "Critical security alert" What's going on?

[Edward_The_Head]

Google has been doing this a lot to me lately. It’s almost always on my phone though. For some reason, every so often my phone thinks it’s in another state and Google sends me an email saying to change my password.

The first time I got that email I was on vacation and had a hard time changing my password but I did. It’s happened a few times in the last two years or so, now I just ignore it because it always says it’s my phone that’s got my password. I’ve had it do the same thing on my laptop as well, it just starts telling me that someone has my password and sends me a bunch of emails telling me to change it.

I think Google, and my banks too, are starting to get too excited about protection. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was some sort of glitch.

[scudsucker]

@ftg

Note that the “From:” part of an email is easier to forge than the return address on an envelope.

@ftg

Pay attention folks! Anything can be put in the “From:” field. You can put “From:Jesus@PearlyGates.Heaven” there. Do not trust that field at all.

(I once had a fellow Computer Science faculty member who didn’t believe me on this. I immediately sent them an email from the President at the White House.)

In a previous company, I infamously (and rather easily) “sent” a mail “from” a colleague (a fellow software engineer, even) asking whether the company preferred Chocolate cake or Cheesecake to celebrate his birthday.

He bought us both, at significant cost, because he could not bake, and he felt he needed to uphold “his” promises. But he did see the humour when I confessed to have forged the mail.