Google account hacked!!!

[pomtzu]

Last night, right before I was getting ready to shut down for the night, I was typing a quick comment in one of the threads here. The next I know, I'm looking at my wallpaper that's on my screen. What the heck??? Thought I accidentally logged myself out, and when I went to get back on, I couldn't get in to Google, and I had a notification from them that they detected suspicious activity on my account, logged me out immediately, and told me I had to change my password. Yikes!! So I did, and then went to my email where there were delivery failed notices to 14 people on my contact list. The mail that got blocked was just a link, but darned if I would open it to see what it was. So just as a precaution, I sent a new email to those 14 addresses and explained that it DID NOT come from me, and what had happened. I'm hoping that none got thru to other people on my contact list tho, that Google didn't catch. Does anyone know if that could happen?? - some would deliver and some wouldn't?
Now I'm rather spooked by this - this is the first time that this has ever happened to me. It's rather ironic, that just yesterday I said something in an email to a friend, about not joining FaceBook, and one of the reasons was because of the breached security issues that I've heard about, and I didn't want to take the chance of being hacked there.
I have the bad habit too, of not logging out of my Google account when I shut down, so when I log back in, I can go directly to Google. That bad habit got stopped last night after I got everything straightened out, and I will log out of Google all the time now.
Has anyone else had any problems such as this lately? Nothing is safe anymore!

[Freedom]

Great to hear the Google security caught this so quickly!

I've not had any problems . . . so far.

[Catty1]

I think you did the best thing by logging out of your Google account, and now doing that every time. What's to stop anyone from getting in - such as a spambot? Those things are programmed to look for gaps like that...sneaky little ninjas that they are!

I only got spammed once on Facebook - by the second of my two accounts. Only on the internet can you spam yourself... On FB I make sure I change my passwords on a regular basis...Gmail too.

[moosmom]

Pomtzu,

Some how, someone hacked into my computer and attached corrupt software. Fortunately, Toshiba was gracious enough to take care of the problem. I had to send my laptop back to them and they fixed it in less than a week. I was notified by Comcast security that someone had hacked into my account and sent out porn emails to everyone in my addy book. He told me to change ALL my passwords, making every single one different and unique and make a habit of NOT staying linked into any of my accounts. I have changed all of my passwords. They're all different, and very long. Because I have bad short term memory problems, I have a little notebook where I have them written down. I also shut my computer completely down every single night. It's pain in the @$$ but so far, I haven't had any problems. Hacking into one's accounts is the same as identity theft, IMO.

[kokopup]

You are using Google for what purpose? Mail? I use outlook express for my mail and have never had any issues. I assume you are using their mail since you are logging in. I use Google for just about everything except mail. I do not have a google account since I am able to use all of their various tools without logging on.

[pomtzu]

You are using Google for what purpose? Mail? I use outlook express for my mail and have never had any issues. I assume you are using their mail since you are logging in. I use Google for just about everything except mail. I do not have a google account since I am able to use all of their various tools without logging on.

Yes - I use Google for everything, including mail. I had Outlook Express years ago when I had dial up () with peoplepc.com, and never liked it, and then later with AOL too. The storage space was horrible, and I was constantly having to delete mail to make room for more - it was a real pain. I never had any problem with gmail before yesterday, and since they responded so quickly and nipped the problem in the bud, then I think I'll stay with them. I just have to be more diligent and make it a practice of logging out of Google every time I shut down for the day, or even if I plan to be idle for an extended period thruout the day.
Thanks for the suggestion tho.........

[Asiel]

This seems to be the week for hackers. I had to get my special technician to come and put my computer back in working order last night. Someone from Facebook had hacked into my account and my computer went on freeze mode. I just shut everything down. I also had the habit of not loging out from different places I went but after the first time I ran into problems and had to change my passwords and names in some places. I now log out of everything.
I was told FB had a brand new security problem caused by none other than themselves....making them money from what I hear, people are getting messed up bad on there. The first time someone hacked in we were able to have it traced so that was handled pretty efficiently. FB is the last place I would ever join for my own security.