Why Gmail Have to Sing in and Out Again and Again
I think someone I know has hacked my Gmail account. What should I do? Valeria
This is a relatively common question. Other contempo examples include "Someone is using my Gmail account to steal my data on a game. How exercise I get rid of him?" from Rodimus Ghost, and "My daughter is using my Gmail account. How practice I stop her?" I don't recall getting these queries nigh other email services.
My usual response is: "How do you know?"
There might be emails in the Sent Mail binder that yous didn't write, though hackers tin can encompass their tracks by deleting copies of sent emails. Even so, incoming emails are not an indicator. I've had emails from Instagram, GoCompare, Barclaycard Business, Apple tree, Prattville YMCA and many other organisations where people have entered my Gmail address, probably by fault. It doesn't mean they have accessed my business relationship.
The best way to tell if someone else has used our business relationship is to scroll down the Gmail inbox and look for "Concluding account activeness" in the bottom right. Clicking on Details produces a overnice table that shows how someone accessed the account (browser, mobile, POP3 etc), their IP address, and the date and time. You should recognise any sessions that aren't yours.
In fact, Gmail will, past default, notify yous of any unusual action. Y'all may get an alert if y'all log on with a new device or from a different land. These alerts can exist annoying only they increment your security. Don't turn them off.
You tin can too check the Recently used devices page, which lists all the PCs, phones and tablets used in the previous 28 days. Over again, it should exist obvious if any of them are not yours.
Double-cheque Settings
There are simple means to read someone else's emails without leaving obvious traces. These are controlled from Gmail'southward Settings, which yous can find by clicking the cogwheel in the summit correct.
On the Settings page, click Accounts and Import and go to the penultimate entry: "Grant access to your account". Someone could click "Add an email business relationship", enter another Gmail address, and access your emails from that account. They tin can go on these emails marked every bit Unread even if they've read them.
Next, click Forwarding and POP/IMAP and review the top section on postal service forwarding.
Email services allow users to forward all incoming emails to another email address, and I call back everyone should do this. I accept Gmail forward all my emails to my account at Microsoft's Outlook.com. As a event, I can still read and reply to emails even if Gmail is inaccessible. Further, if Gmail locked me out, I'd still have copies of emails going dorsum to April 2004.
So, if you can access someone'southward mailbox, you lot tin can set upwardly mail forwarding to an address that you control, and they'll probably never observe. Make sure nobody has done that to you.
If you only read Gmail in a spider web browser, yous could also disable the POP and IMAP admission features. This would provide a small increase in security, only I don't recommend it. In fact, there are advantages to using a PC email program such as Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird or eM Client to collect Gmail using the IMAP protocol. These programs accept more than features than the web version of Gmail, and they store emails on your PC so that you can easily access them offline. IMAP leaves the original emails online, so yous tin still access them using different devices. (Yes, you can also install "Gmail Offline" via the Offline tab.)
Think to salvage any changes before switching tabs.
Password security
One time you are sure your mailbox is non existence hacked, alter your password to go on other people out.
In Gmail, go back to Accounts and Import and click "Alter password".
Choose a strong password or passphrase that includes numbers and upper-case characters. Gmail requires at to the lowest degree 8 characters, just aim for 12 or sixteen or fifty-fifty more. Longer is better. It won't be random, unless you use a password managing director, but avoid family names, names of pets, birthdays, sports teams and other obvious elements.
For convenience, your browser or electronic mail program tin can remember your password. If you allow this, your e-mail is just as secure as your PC. Anyone who can access your PC can access your electronic mail.
Nowadays, of course, the simplest way to hack someone'south email is to use a phishing set on. In this case, someone sends you a link in an email that pretends to come up from Google. Clicking the link opens a browser tab where "Google" asks you lot to log in with your email address and password. The attacker harvests the results.
If you lot're going to leave your PC unattended or autumn for a phishing attack, information technology doesn't matter how stiff your password is.
Do the two-stride
If someone can admission your Gmail account, they can modify your password and lock yous out. You can prevent this by using "two-stride verification". With Gmail, this normally ways Google will text a code to your mobile phone. This is fine until yous don't have a signal or lose your telephone. Gmail therefore asks for a back-up phone number. (Landlines work: you get a vocalism message.) Gmail as well allows y'all to print out a pocket-size set of verification numbers that you tin can use when travelling.
Google provides an alternative to SMS in the form of Google Authenticator, a gratis app for Google Android devices and Apple iPhones and iPads.
Yous can besides simplify two-step verification slightly by using "application specific passwords". For example, if you admission Gmail via a smartphone app or an email client that can't handle ii-footstep verification, you lot tin can request a dissever countersign for each electronic mail program on each device. Information technology only has to be entered once.
To utilize these extra security features in Gmail, go to Accounts and Import, click "Other Google Account settings" and and so "Sign-in & security". This provides access to countersign changes, 2-pace verification, and account recovery options.
Business relationship recovery
What if your password stops working and you tin can't go into Gmail? The traditional arroyo to account recovery is to ask for some personal information, such as your mother's maiden proper noun. This enabled people to hack email accounts by using information gleaned from social media accounts. You tin can prevent this past using random letters or something obscurely incorrect – "Mother'due south maiden name: Quetzalcoatl" – but then you take to remember the answers.
Google'south recovery options include a phone number, another e-mail accost and a security question. Information technology also likes to ask when the account was opened and when yous last used information technology.
You may be able to find out when you created your Gmail account by searching for (in my example) before: 2004/04/15, or whatever date in YYYY/MM/DD society. That won't work if y'all deleted your welcome message, simply vary the appointment to find the oldest message y'all can.
Account recovery is the only way to get your Gmail back if you forget your password or a hacker changes it. But it doesn't e'er work, and you may exist told that "You weren't signed in because Google couldn't confirm that xxxxxxxx@gmail.com belongs to you."
Then – every bit another reader, Paul, found earlier this year – you finish up in a "failed online recovery loop. No contact centre. No online chat. No contact details at all." It looks as if at that place'due south nothing y'all can do except open a new account, change all your online passwords and email addresses, and hope zippo bad happens.
Have yous got a question? Email it to Ask.Jack@theguardian.com
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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2017/jul/27/how-can-i-stop-someone-else-from-using-my-gmail-account-security
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