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WARNING About Gmail - This Could Happen to You

by NeilMoran
18 replies
Hi all,

Last week I went to Gmail to log into my account and without me doing anything it automatically logged me in as soon as the site loaded, the problem was that this wasn't my account, Gmail had logged me into someone elses account!

I could tell straight away that that this wasn't some junk account either as this person had alot of filters/folders setup, they were heavily into affiliate marketing too as they were mainly "guru" names.

I logged straight back out but I bet if I had been a hacker or something I would have found some passwords and account info in there somewhere.

I have absolutely no idea how this happened, it's was very strange and maybe just a fluke, but it is a bit of a worry that it can happen at all and it may not be just Gmail.

Always log out of your accounts and don't keep any passwords etc in there.

Cheers
Neil
#email #gmail #happen #warning
  • Profile picture of the author Fernando Veloso
    Neil,

    Did you inform Gmail team about this? Maybe they could sort it out looking at logs, I don't know.

    Really strange. Never heard of anything similar with Gmail.
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    • Profile picture of the author Rikki_Fawkes
      I've had this occur on several different occasions. I could have read some poor guy's entire inbox, sent emails, chat history - everything. I didn't, but it scares me. I really wonder who can see my account.

      A couple weeks ago I got a notice in my Gmail account that someone from Japan had tried to access it - I wonder if something like this happened to someone else and my account showed up or if it was some other random occurrence.

      Anyway - I'm right with you. It's happened to me in the past, and it keeps happening. I often have this occur when other members in the house have YouTube accounts. Gmail will automatically refresh my page and log me into a family member's Google/YouTube account that might not even have a Gmail account attached.
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    • Profile picture of the author NeilMoran
      Yes I did but I haven't heard anything back, yes it's very strange.
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      • Profile picture of the author Martin Luxton
        Since gmail rolled out a new interface on Tuesday I've had real problems logging in and getting lots of high-ranking websites not found on Firefox with Google Toolbar (on 3 different computers).

        This could be a local problem in Turkey because the government is always banning/hassling Google properties.

        Martin
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  • Profile picture of the author Gary McCaffrey
    Originally Posted by forfreedom View Post

    Hi all,

    Last week I went to Gmail to log into my account and without me doing anything it automatically logged me in as soon as the site loaded, the problem was that this wasn't my account, Gmail had logged me into someone elses account!

    I could tell straight away that that this wasn't some junk account either as this person had alot of filters/folders setup, they were heavily into affiliate marketing too as they were mainly "guru" names.

    I logged straight back out but I bet if I had been a hacker or something I would have found some passwords and account info in there somewhere.

    I have absolutely no idea how this happened, it's was very strange and maybe just a fluke, but it is a bit of a worry that it can happen at all and it may not be just Gmail.

    Always log out of your accounts and don't keep any passwords etc in there.

    Cheers
    Neil
    So this happened on your computer, not a public one?
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    • Profile picture of the author NeilMoran
      Originally Posted by Gary McCaffrey View Post

      So this happened on your computer, not a public one?
      Yes it was my computer, also, it logged me into a Canadian account, I'm in the UK.
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    • Profile picture of the author dika
      Originally Posted by Gary McCaffrey View Post

      So this happened on your computer, not a public one?
      That is the question!

      If you use a public computer, always delete your browsing data before logging out. A shortcut to that is to press ctrl-shift-delete while you are in your browser and check all the check-boxes for deletion.
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  • Profile picture of the author ArticlePrince
    I wouldn't keep using it, not worth the risk. You only need the wrong person to get in once and it'll take you years to fix. Not worth it; there are too many other email providers.
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  • Profile picture of the author Gpolo
    What can we do to protect ourselves from something like this happening again? I am assuming this happened on your own personal computer?
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  • Profile picture of the author tecHead
    You can always get good information about Google's status on their various apps by going here...

    Apps Status Dashboard

    You can tell whether or not they know about it and/or if they're fixing it. Good way to stay calm in situations like the one of the OP.

    HTH
    PLP,
    tecHead
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    • Profile picture of the author Lifeimprovement
      This happened to me one time also (two months ago). It was a home computer with adequate safeguards in place.

      I was already logged into the account when it happened. I had been surfing and opened up a new tab and went to gmail. It logged me in right away to another account.

      Now I log out each time.
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  • Profile picture of the author forthright
    It's good to change your password every 6 months or so. It's no coincidence that Outlook, Salesforce, etc and programs like that force you to change it.
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  • Profile picture of the author King Shiloh
    Banned
    Funny things do happen everywhere even on the internet.

    Please I pray that such a strange thing doesn't happen to me but that's one of the disadvantages of using a free email system.
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    • Profile picture of the author astevn816
      I have a Hotmail account that I have not been able to login for 3 days. Today I'm in the process of setting up e-mail subscriptions at G-mail, but after reading this I think I will check into a paid e-mail account.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rough Outline
    Is this problem appearing with Hotmail or Yahoo?
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  • Profile picture of the author NeilMoran
    Originally Posted by alyonafrendo View Post

    could it be that you allowed someone (perhaps a friend/family) to use your computer and he checked his gmail account and set auto-log in?
    No, I'm the only person that uses my computer, it's a gmail glitch for sure.
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