Comprised gmail account

Murta

I've had a very bad dude from Singapore (203.116.22.216) hacking into my gmail in the early hours of the morning and locking me out while they sent crappy emails (directing people to a dodgy computer goods site (www.shoppingparadises.com) to all my contacts. I've since changed my password and security settings. But this could happen again if some other Asian dude manages to hack in again.

Ideally, I want to block most countries IP addressess from accessing my gmail account. Anyone know how this can be done?

FSL

Gmail is world wide and doubt Google would want to block every country except Ireland.

What you need to do is set a long password which does not contain any dictionary words and uses keyboard characters other than a-z.

Murta

Hi FSL, changing password is all well and good. It's never gonna be 100% secure. I'm not talking about banning every country apart from Ireland from using gmail. I talking about MY gmail account - the only person that should be accessing it is me. I know where I am and where my IP is based. It would be a useful security feature to block certain countries or IPs from accessing MY gmail account.

28064212

Murta wrote: »

Hi FSL, changing password is all well and good. It's never gonna be 100% secure.

Was your password reasonably secure? i.e. non-dictionary, at least 8 characters, and at least one each of a capital, number and non-alphanumeric character? That is a much more effective method of preventing 'hacking' than looking for a security feature Google are unlikely to ever implement

Xhristy

This post has been deleted.

Murta

Thanks Xhristy. Hadn't heard of gmail's two factor authentication. I've now set it up and am rather impressed. It should do the trick. At least it makes it harder for hacker's to get in.

900913

Murta wrote: »

I've had a very bad dude from Singapore (203.116.22.216) hacking into my gmail in the early hours of the morning and locking me out while they sent crappy emails (directing people to a dodgy computer goods site (www.shoppingparadises.com) to all my contacts. I've since changed my password and security settings. But this could happen again if some other Asian dude manages to hack in again.

Ideally, I want to block most countries IP addressess from accessing my gmail account. Anyone know how this can be done?

Did use reuse your gmail password?
ie. Have you used the same pass as your gmail on any other site. If so it doesn't really matter how strong your pass is, as the other site could be storing it in plain text!

Murta

900913 wrote: »

Did use reuse your gmail password?
ie. Have you used the same pass as your gmail on any other site. If so it doesn't really matter how strong your pass is, as the other site could be storing it in plain text!

Valid point, some sites do store as plain text and have a tendency to email that text based password. I've started to use unique passwords for sites holding any sensitive information like credit card details. Once biten, twice shy ;-).

jakedixon2004

It doesnt really matter how long your password is. The person is most likely using a stealer/logger of some sort. If you have rather valuable data on the computer then I would suggest a backup and format.

AnCatDubh

xkcd springs to mind

I like the two-factor google stuff. Also available as part of google code for servers as smartphone app, rotating codes, etc.... should anyone be into that kind of thing.

But I believe nothing is ever completely secure - you mostly just limit the likelihood to you being compromised with your efforts (which is also a good thing).