I’ve been getting weird notifications from google, them asking me to change my password and all (and initially I had to have them send me a text message with a verification code) and weird stuff has been going out from my gmail. Should I be worried, or doing something else besides just changing the password?
I had my gmail account suspended for “suspicious activity” not too long ago. Turns out some d-bag in Japan got the password and was sending prescription drug spam to my contact list. Changed the password, everything is fine.
Happened to me a few weeks ago. I noticed some “undeliverable” notices from email addresses I’d not had contact with for years. Checking my sent items I noticed a couple of mass spam mailings. I changed my passwords to something a fair bit stronger.
Looking at the “Last Account Activity” section on Gmail it looks like the spam was sent from a mobile device in France. I was not in France.
Thanks, guys. I tend to get very worried about minor things. (Check out my thread on laundry to see me freak out over whether putting the detergent in before or after the clothes matters to see my neuroses in action!)
My Gmail account got hacked last night, from China. Someone sent out a single spam message to everyone on my friends list. I’m pretty careful w/ my passwords and virus/spyware protection so I’m not sure how they got it. Seems suspicious that so many Gmail users are being hacked.
It happened to me with a Yahoo account. It was 3:30 AM and I got about 19 “mail undeliverable” messages in a row. Some ahole in Russia guessed (I hate it when people say “hacked”) my password and sent out viagra spam to anyone I’d ever emailed. It was my own fault, it was a common word found in any dictionary. I changed it to one of my default, more complex passwords and everything’s fine now.
I got the undeliverables in my inbox, but the sent item looked like it had been stripped of anything, basically just a blank mail with a very spammy subject line. My old password wasn’t exactly a dictionary word. Who knows. Anyway, all my passwords are now very fiendish.
This happened to me - google shut down my account for a few weeks, then allowed me to reopen it with a changed password.
One useful feature with Gmail is a box at the bottom of the screen that indicates the ip address last used to log into your account and whether it is the same as the one you are currently using. It’s a good idea to get into the habit of checking this every time you log on.
I don’t know about Gmail, but Yahoo was fairly recently hacked, and a lot of people’s accounts got compromised, and so many were required to change their password. This could be the same thing with Gmail.
Do check the IP list mentioned above. If you don’t know your own, try whatismyipaddress.com or whatismyIP.com.
ETA: I did run into a problem with my Gmail, but it had to do with stupidly using the same account on Facebook, and my account was brute force hacked there, since I never cared enough to use a strong password.
My point in bringing this up is to point out that, if you use the same password anywhere else where your email address is visible, it’s possible your account was hacked from that.
I did but since then I don’t anymore…thanks for the heads up, BigT.
Also if you click “details” next to that it will show you a longer list of all the recent log-ins to your account, and the location where those IPs are from.
I had the same message pop up today. I think it was because I had left my Gmail open on the computer at home, then I tried to log in to that personal account from work (which is a place I don’t usually check it from, but I was expecting a message).
Just remember that, sometimes your IP’s physical location is sometimes off. Mine until recently was from a town 100 miles away. That’s why I suggest finding out your own IP with the services I recommended. My quick investigation of them indicated that are no less secure than any other website.