PCFormat Forum Archive

Google has reported unauthorised access to my mother's gmail account twice within the past week.
Her account has purportedly been accessed from oval.co.za using an IP address beginning with the number 41.

I changed her gmail password for her last Sunday only to see this message pop up again today when she logged in.

I have run Super Antispyware and NOD 32 hoping to catch some nasties, but have only come up with a host of Adware Cookies.

I am going to change her password for her again, but this does not seem to be any guarantee that someone will not go nosing around
in her account again.

How do I bprevent this from happening again?

Is there any physical indication that someone has accessed the account? Like sent emails that your mom did not send? This could actually be a spy or hoax email that records you changing the password and then gives them access. Delete the email - run your antispy programs and then go in on the usual link and change the password. Can't hurt to be careful.

Enable the two-step verification. That essentially only allows authorized devices access to your account, which you need to authorize yourself, obviously.

I haven't enabled this myself, but I read about it after it's release and also heart some chatter about it on a podcast I listened to earlier today.

Thank you for the advice. Where do you find these podcasts?

/Edit. Google says that the two step process isn't available yet

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I have no idea as to what manner of technical wizardry Google uses. Maybe it spots that you are not logging in via your usual computer and notifies you
that someone is trying to log on from somewhere else?

What are these sessions that I need to log out of?

It gives a table with a list of IP addresses all starting with "41"

I changed the password, then made a mistake while typing it in, forgot what I had typpen in and had to reset it again.

I'd also suggest changing the recover password question if there is one.
A lot of people you think is "friendly" that knows your pets names or where you were born or maiden names (you catch my drift)... will change your password just for the heck of it.

Google does not do that. I often log in from strange sites and it never lets me know

when two step verification comes into play gmail will be so tank. will need to be decoded on my android device.

another great reason to dump other webmail clients and for websites to use google account to verify users.

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Funny enough, yesterday I got a sms from google with a verification code.

Quickly log into my recovery mail address and there is a mail from google with a link for me to confirm to change my password.
Deleted, and logged into gmail.

If you look right at the bottom of the page, there is a place where you can click and it will show you the last 10 IP's that had been used to log into the account. Check for irregularities.

-Prometheus- wrote: I wish I can disable it, it's the most unsecure thing I've seen.

So be creative no one said you should use the actual things

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or use a password manager.