Posted by snoopdogMs on 1/29/08 5:05pm
Msg #233010

G-mail hacked into?

I was in Kinkos today and one of the managers told me that a hacker had broken into G-mail. He told me I might want to change my e-mail account. I told him it might just be a rumor. Anyone hear of such?

Reply by kate_nortca on 1/29/08 6:34pm
Msg #233039

Exactly what do you mean by hacked? You mean someone accessed all the accounts and made them inaccessible? Because I logged into mine alright. I'm not completely clear on why you would want to change your email account.

Kate

Reply by snoopdogMs on 1/29/08 7:26pm
Msg #233050

He just said that a hacker had invaded g-mail and has access to peoples e-mails and could therefore use any info found within. It was his suggestion to change my address. I don't plan to change mine as this is probably just a rumor. I was just curious how widespread this rumor is by asking the forum as I have not seen anything official about such a breach.

Reply by MikeC/NY on 1/29/08 7:21pm
Msg #233049

The manager must have inside info, because there's been nothing about this so far on any of the techie newsfeeds I follow.That's not to say it hasn't happened, but I think a major breach would be big news.

Reply by pleasantonCA on 1/29/08 8:30pm
Msg #233064

According to a friend in computer industry all gmail accounts are owned by Google, that means they can read your email at any given time. So matter whether the system was hacked or not, any sensitive information is at risk. Also, gmail may not want you to know if the system was hacked as this means their infrastructure is not secure (vulnerable).

Reply by kate_nortca on 1/29/08 8:55pm
Msg #233066

Eh, it is not just your friend in the 'computer industry' that knows gmail is owned by Google. Pretty much public information. If you follow the prompts necessary to setup a gmail account you cannot miss that Google is the owner.

As far it being secure or insecure all free web mail providers are insecure. In fact very little if any email is secure unless coded with something like PGP. It would be impossible for something like free web mail that lives on public servers to be privileged information. Even messages composed in email on a dedicated POP3 mail account can be (and no doubt is) read by people working at your ISP. Trust me, I've worked at one before.

Hence my question about the worry on someone allegedly hacking a gmail acccount. Most of us know now to use email as a secure transmission and therefore would have not have sensitive information stored in an email message or account. Right?

Kate

Reply by kate_nortca on 1/29/08 9:00pm
Msg #233068

Sorry, that was meant to be 'most of us know NOT to use email as a secure transmission..,"

Kate

Reply by MikeC/NY on 1/29/08 9:06pm
Msg #233070

<< According to a friend in computer industry all gmail accounts are owned by Google, that means they can read your email at any given time. So matter whether the system was hacked or not, any sensitive information is at risk.>>

Reality check time - there are hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of gmail accounts - do you really think they've got some geek in a back room scanning all that email for sensitive information? Beyond that, ANY email account you have has to hit an email server somewhere - so unless you encrypt it, all of your email is "at risk".

<< Also, gmail may not want you to know if the system was hacked as this means their infrastructure is not secure (vulnerable).>>

Trust me - if it happened, we'll know about it; people will be screaming about their compromised email accounts.

I wouldn't be surprised if this rumor turns out to be tied to a recent story about Comcast accidentally deleting the email of a large number of users.

Reply by Glenn Strickler on 1/29/08 11:27pm
Msg #233077

There are a lot of phishing emails that go through all servers to all email accounts. They usually try to alert you that one of your accounts is closed, limited or other issue in your life, or may tell you you won a lotto in England and will provide you with a link to "fix" it or "claim your prize" . An unknowing person will click on the link then provide the requested info that will then compromise your account. Then the victim will swear that their email account was hacked into. That is probably what happened to your friend. They will blame the email instead of taking responsibility.

Any email needs to be considered insecure unless it is sent between two secure servers and encrypted and even then it may not be secure. And never click on any link provided in an email and give any information.

If Google was hacked, it would be all over the news ....

Reply by Dennis/CA on 1/30/08 12:42am
Msg #233079

Type "Gmail Hacked" (without the quotes) into Google and you'll get over 200,000 hits. Issues of Gmail being hacked range from 2004 through last week. The issue is not new.

Reply by Glenn Strickler on 1/30/08 12:22pm
Msg #233134

Well, reading through some of those complaints makes the point. At some point in time, they broke a cardinal rule an put personal information on a web-based email by responding to a link requesting information.

Gmail, Yahoo mail, Hotmail .. any email program needs to be considered insecure. And anytime that you use a credit card online, you should use a card that offers a virtual number generation program that generates a number good one time for an amount you set. Then it doesn't matter who gets the number as it's already been used once and it can't be used again. .... (Citi for example)