Your Gmail account can be hacked
Almost 2 weeks ago one of my subscribers spammed me.
Then a few days ago two other subscribers spammed me too.
When I received the last spam email, it seemed to me that I know that message. I checked my archive, I compared the 3 above mentioned emails and here is what I found:
- the emails were sent from 3 different Gmail accounts
- the content of the emails was almost identic
- the holders of these 3 accounts had different IP’s
Then I visited my favored forum and I found the answer to this mistery: recently more Gmail accounts were hacked and the hacker (or the hackers) spammed the people having their email addresses in the Contact List of the hacked accounts.
I read more on this topic and I found out this:
A tool that automatically steals IDs of non-encrypted sessions and breaks into Google Mail accounts has been presented at the Defcon hackers’ conference in Las Vegas.
Oops!
Basically, if you’re logged into your Gmail account and then browse a site infected, a script will harvest your username and password and then that’s it: the hacker will hack your Gmail account.
What’s the solution for this problem?
To throw away your Gmail account? NO!
Last week, Google introduced a new feature in Gmail that allows users to permanently switch on SSL. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser.
Here is how you can protect yourself:
1. Log into your Gmail email account
2. Click on “Settings” (at the top of any Gmail page)
3. Set “Browser Connection” to “Always use https”
4. Click on “Save Changes”
5. Log out
6. Log in again and you’re safe.
Now if you look at the link from the Address Bar, you will see that instead of “http” it starts with “https” which means that now your connection is SECURE.
Take care!
