Act Now To Mitigate Latest Gmail Hack Attacks

You only have to take a moment to browse the subject lines of postings to the Gmail subreddit online for the hacking threat to emerge front and center. “Another day, another Gmail hacking attempt,” “Google account hacked yesterday,” “Help recovering hacked Gmail account,” and, well, I could go on. The latest hack attack warning has been published by the Daily Mail, which details how a user was contacted with an account compromised email supposedly from Google support, and which ended up with their account being hacked.

Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security, thinking that such social engineering tactics would never work against you. That’s a dangerous attitude, right there. I know of people working in the cybersecurity field who have been fooled by both truly sophisticated and extremely basic phishing attacks. It only takes a momentary lack of attention, a stressful day or a distraction for you to fall victim and click a link or follow an instruction you might normally treat with the caution it deserves. Thankfully, Google has a number of mitigations that can help balance the risk books in your favor. Here’s what you need to do.

Be prepared. While Google can send “suspicious sign-in prevented” emails when an attempt to access accounts are blocked, this is also a primary method of trying to compromise an account. “Always be wary of messages that ask for personal information like usernames, passwords, or other identification information, or send you to unfamiliar websites asking for this information,” Google advised. To be safe, however, I would go a step further and recommend following Google’s advice to always go and check your account for suspicious activity directly. Go to your Google Account|Security|Recent security events|Review security events. Do not click on any link in the message to arrive at your account; always go to it using your normal method.

Run a security check now. Although I recently reported on a fake Google security check being used to compromise accounts, this does not negate the value of using the real one. This user-friendly tool, which is automatically populated upon opening, offers crucial security checks from Gmail settings to two-factor authentication, devices, third-party access, as well as recent activities like new sign-ins or setting changes. Best of all, it guides you through the steps needed to activate these and get the best protection for your account, ahead of any attack attempts.

If you take note of these two pieces of advice for your Gmail account, you should be better prepared to deal with the initial attack approach used by many hackers and scammers, and your account will already be hardened against attacks by following the recommendations in the security check-up. Stay safe out there.