Urgent!!! Gmail account hijacked. How do I contact Google?

rosboy

Hi all.

My gmail account was hijacked a couple of hours ago. I installed Thunderbird on my computer to manage my email. While that was downloading my email, my Gmail account seems to heave been compromised.

My password doesn't work.

My ebay password didn't work, but I have contacted them. An 8GB Nokia N95 was out up for sale on my account. I rectified this problem.

I've also cancelled my credit card.

But I can't find a way of contacting Google for help. It keeps sending me around in circles. When I click on "My account has been compromised", it asks me to enter my email address (the one that was hijacked), and then says it has sent a reminder email to that address!!!!!!!!!

Cam someone please give me a link of where I can contact Google?

Tusky

rosboy wrote: »

Hi all.

My gmail account was hijacked a couple of hours ago. I installed Thunderbird on my computer to manage my email. While that was downloading my email, my Gmail account seems to heave been compromised.

My password doesn't work.

My ebay password didn't work, but I have contacted them. An 8GB Nokia N95 was out up for sale on my account. I rectified this problem.

I've also cancelled my credit card.

But I can't find a way of contacting Google for help. It keeps sending me around in circles. When I click on "My account has been compromised", it asks me to enter my email address (the one that was hijacked), and then says it has sent a reminder email to that address!!!!!!!!!

Cam someone please give me a link of where I can contact Google?

Did you give gmail an alternative address when you signed up ? I imagine it means it has sent an email to the alternate address.

Try change your password. You should have a secret question.

rosboy

Tusky wrote: »

Did you give gmail an alternative address when you signed up ? I imagine it means it has sent an email to the alternate address.

Try change your password. You should have a secret question.

Yes I gave a backup password. When I click "I've forgotten my password" link, I get a message saving the password reminder has been send to my yahoo.com.cn email address. But I don't have one on those emails. Thanks the hackers email.

.....oh, and thanks for the reply

rosboy

Has anyone a link for contact with Google? I have a lot of stuff in my Gmail account that I'd hate to lose.

rosboy

OK, I've found this link for contacting google:

http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/request.py?service=mail

Have emailed them now. Not sure how long it will take for an answer.

b0bsquish

Good luck with this, google are very picky about handing control of an account back to its rightful owner. Usually takes 24hours ish for them to get back to you, usually they will ask for proof that the account is yours ie subjects/times of sent or recieved emails etc.

jamesozzie

Happened me before too buddy and believe me, im very careful as regards passwords, emails, paypal etc.

Im not too sure about Google but I will advise you to change your password for EVERYTHING now. It was some dodgy Chinese f*ckers that got into my Gmail and in turn my ebay and yahoo accounts. They also changed my alternative email address's. eBay have a good support system where you can IM a support analyst who can rectify your eBay account.

I had emails sent to all my contacts also about some dodgy fake Chinese electronics website so be careful.

rosboy

b0bsquish wrote: »

Good luck with this, google are very picky about handing control of an account back to its rightful owner. Usually takes 24hours ish for them to get back to you, usually they will ask for proof that the account is yours ie subjects/times of sent or recieved emails etc.

jamesozzie wrote: »

Happened me before too buddy and believe me, im very careful as regards passwords, emails, paypal etc.

Im not too sure about Google but I will advise you to change your password for EVERYTHING now. It was some dodgy Chinese f*ckers that got into my Gmail and in turn my ebay and yahoo accounts. They also changed my alternative email address's. eBay have a good support system where you can IM a support analyst who can rectify your eBay account.

I had emails sent to all my contacts also about some dodgy fake Chinese electronics website so be careful.

No word back from google yet. Its about 22 hours since I contacted them. I think I've limited the damage that could be done, but am eager to get my account back.....I have a lot of emails there that I don't want to loose, as well as a lot of contacts.

Can't remember if I said earlier, but they got into my ebay account too and put stuff up for sale. They also changed back up email addresses.

I'd be fairly safety conscious about passwords and usernames, and am not entirely sure how this happened. The best I can guess was that it was some worm that ran when my freshly installed Thunderbird was syncing with Gmail. If that was the case, its pretty scary to think that even when you are doing everything right, using one of the biggest companies in the world (Google), and a highly reputable one (Mozilla) that you can get attacked. Its a real wake up call!

It was a dodgy Chinese f@*ker, who did this to me to. I sent a mail to him yesterday after I cancelled my credit card and alerted ebay.....just to tell him he was getting nothing from me:)

I'll come back and give an update when I have some more info.

mukki

rosboy wrote: »

I'd be fairly safety conscious about passwords and usernames, and am not entirely sure how this happened. The best I can guess was that it was some worm that ran when my freshly installed Thunderbird was syncing with Gmail. If that was the case, its pretty scary to think that even when you are doing everything right, using one of the biggest companies in the world (Google), and a highly reputable one (Mozilla) that you can get attacked. Its a real wake up call!
.

if there is a trojan virus/worm keylogger on your pc then its not your password strength, google or thunderbirds fault

rosboy

mukki wrote: »

if there is a trojan virus/worm keylogger on your pc then its not your password strength, google or thunderbirds fault

Ya, I'm not blaming any of them. I'm putting it more at McAfee not catching them wirus/worm. Not sure if thats fair or not though.

mukki

rosboy wrote: »

Ya, I'm not blaming any of them. I'm putting it more at McAfee not catching them wirus/worm. Not sure if thats fair or not though.

oh yeah mate, 100% agree with you there, i recon mcafee only spots the viruses they make themeslves

probe

Reformat your hard drive, re-install the OS and applications software, use new complex passwords.

gmail uses an encrypted connection, and thunderbird uses an encrypted connection to contact the gmail server. These are not the cause of the problem.

Most anti-virus software is probably a waste of money. Don't open email attachments unless you are expecting the attachment, and keep your OS patched up to the minute. If you get an attachment from someone you know, contact them before you open it to verify that they sent it. Even then, the sender's machine could be compromised, unknown to them!

Use Secunia http://secunia.com/ to check for applications software that is out of date on your system. You can do a quick online check via this link: http://secunia.com/software_inspector/
Click on start now.

Most PCs have potential software vulnerabilities in Java, Adobe Acrobat, Flash and similar because they have not been patched allowing malicious websites to run code on your machine that could include a keyboard logger to steal your password, card numbers, name and address and other ID info. Secunia can help you identify the programs that need security patches.

Consider other websites that you have visited and "registered" your ID information using a password and perhaps given your card details to - eg services you subscribe to. You may need to take appropriate action to ensure that the passwords you use for these websites are changed after you sanitize your machine - these passwords may have been captured by a keyboard logger in the past and used later to get your new card number details when you supply them to the website(s) in question!

.probe

rosboy

probe wrote: »

Reformat your hard drive, re-install the OS and applications software, use new complex passwords.

I'm two days ahead of you:)

gmail uses an encrypted connection, and thunderbird uses an encrypted connection to contact the gmail server. These are not the cause of the problem.

Wasn't inclined to blame either.

Most anti-virus software is probably a waste of money.

So I've found out:p

Don't open email attachments unless you are expecting the attachment,and keep your OS patched up to the minute. If you get an attachment from someone you know, contact them before you open it to verify that they sent it. Even then, the sender's machine could be compromised, unknown to them!

I never do. I'm extremely careful about that sort of thing. I don't even open an email, never mind an attachment, if I don't know who its from.

Use Secunia http://secunia.com/ to check for applications software that is out of date on your system. You can do a quick online check via this link: http://secunia.com/software_inspector/
Click on start now.

Most PCs have potential software vulnerabilities in Java, Adobe Acrobat, Flash and similar because they have not been patched allowing malicious websites to run code on your machine that could include a keyboard logger to steal your password, card numbers, name and address and other ID info. Secunia can help you identify the programs that need security patches.

Consider other websites that you have visited and "registered" your ID information using a password and perhaps given your card details to - eg services you subscribe to. You may need to take appropriate action to ensure that the passwords you use for these websites are changed after you sanitize your machine - these passwords may have been captured by a keyboard logger in the past and used later to get your new card number details when you supply them to the website(s) in question!

.probe

I'll keep an eye on this, it could have been where my problem came from.

Thanks for the reply probe