It is difficult to happen, but it is not impossible either. Have you detected a suspicious movement in your Gmail account ? To access Google email you must have the username and password of its owner, but if you have been careless or your phone or computer has been exposed to a security threat, it would not be so difficult for a cybercriminal to skipped all security measures to intrude on your personal data. But how can I know if someone has accessed my email account? If you detect strange movements, messages sent from your own account and other unusual actions, you should take a look at the following recommendations. Someone could be using your email!
What things should put you on alert
We would recommend you to be attentive to any of these movements:
- You receive a message that apparently has your own account as a sender
- If you have spam messages in your inbox that seem to have been sent by you
- You receive responses to messages that you have not sent
What's going on?
It could be a spoofing attack , that is, an identity theft. The criminal falsifies the email account to hide the real sender. Falsifying the data is not complicated , so if someone tries to falsify your address and in the end there is some kind of problem with the shipment, the message will reach you again, even if it was not you who sent it. In any case, two things may have happened: that the message was fraudulent and someone has forged your address so that you appear as the sender or that the sender has put your address so that the responses reach your account. This means that it does not have to be a case of spoofing .
How to check it?
If you finally suspect that someone is using your email account, the best thing you can do is check it through the Last activity of your account tool . To do this, follow these instructions:
1. Access your Gmail account by entering your username and password.
2. At the bottom of the inbox, click on the Detailed information link .
3. Now you will see a table with all the information you need to know. This includes the date and time of the connections (in your time zone), the location and the IP address (in the screenshot we have eliminated it for obvious reasons) and the type of access (if this was through the browser, mobile, POP3, etc.), including the browser or if it has been through mobile. In this way, you can have a fairly clear idea of whether someone has made a move that you are not responsible for.
4. From this same section you can close all the sessions that are open on the web (except yours), which will come in handy if someone is accessing your email from another place. You can also configure alerts to receive notifications in case of fraudulent logins.
Change password
1. And do it regularly. Use a password that is easy for you to remember, but is also difficult to guess. Remember that it must be long enough, contain uppercase, lowercase and combine letters and numbers. To do this, access your Gmail account and click on the gear at the top right. Choose Settings .
2. Next, select the Accounts and import tab . At the top you have the option to change the password.
3. All you have to do is click on Change password . The system will ask you to include a new password, with precise instructions on how to make it more secure. With this, you will have already taken all the necessary steps to protect your email account .