Do not lose your account — what you need to know.
Republished on August 18 with a new warning for Google users about the risks in their Gmail address and what they should do to secure their accounts.
Google has confirmed that Gmail attacks are surging, as hackers steal passwords to gain access to accounts. This also means a surge in “suspicious sign in prevented” emails, Google’s warning that “it recently blocked an attempt to access your account.”
Attackers know this — that Gmail user concerns are heightened by security warnings, and they use this to frame their attacks. “Sometimes hackers try to copy the ‘suspicious sign in prevented’ email,” Google warns, “to steal other people’s account information,” which then gives those hackers access to user accounts.
If you receive this Google email warning, do not click on any link or button within the email itself. Instead, “go to your Google Account, on the left navigation panel, click security, and on the recent security events panel, click to review security events.”
If any of the events raise concerns — times or locations or devices you do not recognize — then “on the top of the page click secure your account” to change your password.
This is the same risk as the recent Amazon refund scam, which texts a link for a fake Amazon refund, but which actually steals login credentials. The answer is twofold. First, never click any such link in a text message or email. And second, add passkeys to your Google, Amazon and other accounts to stop such hijacks.
This exploitation of seemingly legitimate emails, messages and calls that perfectly mimic the content and style of the real thing has become an alarming theme in the last year.
