It’s been a worrying few weeks for those with a Gmail account. Millions of users were recently placed on high alert after the news that a hacking group – called ShinyHunters – had managed to steal a swathe of data in a major breach. It was widely reported that 2.5 million accounts may have been affected by the leak with many urged to change their passwords immediately.
Although the hack did take place, users may not actually need to rush to the settings menu. In a bid to calm those fears about its popular email platform, Google has now spoken out.
“We want to reassure our users that Gmail’s protections are strong and effective,” Google said.
“Several inaccurate claims surfaced recently that incorrectly stated that we issued a broad warning to all Gmail users about a major Gmail security issue. This is entirely false.”
Along with this message, Google also says that it has robust security blocks that prevent almost all dangerous messages from ever landing in Gmail inboxes.
“While it’s always the case that phishers are looking for ways to infiltrate inboxes, our protections continue to block more than 99.9% of phishing and malware attempts from reaching users,” Google added.
Of course, with Gmail being such a popular platform it’s always going to be in the sights of cyber crooks and that means users should never let their guard down.
Google says users should use a secure password alternative like Passkeys and set up two-factor authentification (2FA) which means accounts can only be acessed once a code has been sent to a secondary device.
It’s also a good idea to always follow some best practices to spot and report phishing attacks.
Here are 4 rules to help protect accounts.
1. Pay attention to warnings from Google
2. Never respond to requests for private info
3. Don’t enter your password after clicking a link in a message
4. Beware of messages that sound urgent or too good to be true
