Gmail Hacked 2020: How to Check if Your Account is Pawned and How to Secure

Urian B., Tech Times 16 December 2020, 10:12 pm

Cybersecurity this 2020 sure is important as hacking becomes even more common than before. The nasty thing about hacking, however, is that some people do not even know that their personal email has been accessed!

This comes after a warning from Will Geddes, a security expert from his statement on talkRadio on Monday. The CEO of the International Corporate Protection Group reportedly warned Gmail that it may have been sabotaged by certain hackers. He then said that the "sky is the limit" for the number of compromise daccounts as Google has over 1.5 users around the globe, reported by Express.co.uk.

How to prevent your Gmail account from being hacked?

According to an article by The Sun, there are actually a few ways to check out if the users' gmail has been hacked or otherwise called "pwned." The article then suggests a counter measure in order to combat this hack.

Back in October of 2019, Google then launched a particular Password Checkup add-on feature for the Google Chrome web browser. Google would use this tool in order to cross-reference the users' log-in details along with massive lists of other hacked log-ions and notify users if their accounts could be compromised.

Can you see your Gmail password?

The noted free Password Checkup software can simply be loaded onto Google Chrome allowing users to check their account details online. If the users' password matches the 4 billion passwords around the world, the software can immediately flag them.

The detection notifies users instantly and can be seen with the use of the Password Checkup. If another breach should occur, this particular app would immediately notify the user about their passwords being compromised.

How to check if your Gmail Account has been hacked

First of all, users may simply download the Password Checkup directly from the Google Chrome web store by simply clicking here. Going back, there is also another website that is popular to use for checking if users have been hacked called the Have I Been Pwned.

Users can reportedly safely enter their own email addresses and the website will then look for multiple data breach incidents. There will then be a message as to whether or not the website was pwned.

What to do if your Gmail account has been pwned?

In the worst case scenario, the very first thing that needs to be done is to immediately access the users' logins and passwords for the supposed affected account. The next thing that needs to be done is to change the passwords ASAP.

The ideal way to combat getting pwned or even giving hackers a hard time is to use passwords that hackers won't have an easy time accessing. There are a few techniques in order to make sure that the passwords being used won't easily be accessed by just anyone else.

How to secure your Gmail Account:

Here are some ways to make better passwords:

Avoid obvious numbers (birthdays, years, etc.)
Avoid names (especially your own)
Try using a mixture of capital and small letters
Try refraining from using words (try using pure random passwords)

An ideal password is something that does not related to the user at all and that the hackers won't be able to figure out with just a simple look into the users' information. These passwords generally have less chances of being hacked due to its complication. Although the chances of hacking might not seem to be too dangerous, it is still better to be safe or sorry.

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Written by Urian Buenconsejo