Gmail, China and Security

Gmail has beefed up account security a little recently, possibly in part due to the recent China hacking and phishing attacks and intrusions. Now, detecting suspicious account activity has gotten a little simpler.

You may remember Gmail’s 2008 Remote Sign Out and Info post where they announced the then new remote sign out and info feature which allowed you to see from what IP, and at what time your past several logins occurred in your Gmail account. You can access the Activity on This Account info window when logged into Gmail by scrolling to the bottom and clicking the Details link you can see in the screenshot below.

Now, if Gmail notices logins from different locations and figures you aren’t likely to have accessed your account from those locations, you will see a notice when you login next.

For example, you aren’t likely to be able to access your account from Canada and Mexico within 15 minutes of one another.

Now, if it looks like something unusual is going on with your account, we’ll also alert you by posting a warning message saying, “Warning: We believe your account was last accessed from…” along with the geographic region that we can best associate with the access.

- Google’s Pavni Diwanji, Engineering Director

The Activity on This Account info window has been changed to reflect new information now available to you as a result of this latest security change. Here’s what it looks like now.

Now you can more easily detect if your account has been accessed without your permission or knowledge more easily. If you think your account has been compromised you should change your password, and it won’t hurt to check your Google Account settings to make sure that your secondary email address has not been changed – or in the case you don’t have one making sure that one has not been added. I’d guess that in the future it will only get easier to determine if someone has been tampering with your Gmail account.

RELATED READING

Google: Keeping Your Data Secure
Google Security Blog