1 Chinese Hacker Cracks Hundreds of Gmail Accounts in USA and Asia Sun Jun 05, 2011 1:39 pm
Kannan
Admin
Hackers around the world are gaining more attention than usual in the
last few months. Now Google has added another announcement to the pile
that hundreds of Gmail accounts have been hacked recently.
Now, Google affirms that the problem doesn’t rest with Gmail security
but rather this scheme was a result of phishing and malware.
Google spilled the details on Wednesday via its official blog:
Through the strength of our cloud-based security and abuse
detection systems*, we recently uncovered a campaign to collect user
passwords, likely through phishing. This campaign, which appears to
originate from Jinan, China, affected what seem to be the personal Gmail
accounts of hundreds of users including, among others, senior U.S.
government officials, Chinese political activists, officials in several
Asian countries (predominantly South Korea), military personnel and
journalists.
The goal of this effort seems to have been to monitor the contents of
these users’ emails, with the perpetrators apparently using stolen
passwords to change peoples’ forwarding and delegation settings.
Gmail users affected by this security mishap should have already been
notified. Google’s security team outlined a number of steps that Gmail
users can take to protect themselves, which should only take about “ten
minutes.”
Google recommended the following:
Use two-factor authentication;
Choose a strong password;
Watch for suspicious activity warnings in your Gmail account;
Check your settings for odd forwarding.