Email account hijacked

Ha ha, it seems to be in my "stars" that this is my time for mini-crises

There was the failure of my wi-fi mobile broadband module a couple of days ago, then my apparent loss of $150.

This morning I decided to checkout an email account that I haven't used for a long time, puppylinux@gmail.com, but I was unable to login. It informed me that I was using an old password that had been changed 5 months ago. Fortunately I was able to go through the recovery process and change the password.

But, after logging in, everything was in Russian!!!

This was a bad situation, as I could not even figure out how to logout. The thing is, I cannot login to my regular gmail account while the other one is still open. I figured out how to get the Account Management page in English, then deleted the account.

I don't know how anyone could have got the password. was Google itself compromised?

One lesson from this, I need a backup email account that is not with gmail.com.

In fact, this whole online email thing is a worry.

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Comments

Google translate
Username: lobster
Alternative to Google (still online though) http://www.gmx.com/ I went over to online mail for convenience and because spam was such an issue. As you know any cloud service is a risk If there was an auto setup wizard for the mail client in Seamonkey (a lot of work possibly involving XUL) then maybe I would go back t a non cloud option. Google Translate would have let you read some of the Russian stuff . . . Very glad you managed to order a Raspberry Pi. All I have is custard.

free email
Username: wognath
"Hello, After being creeped out by the ads in gmail, I found this forum: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=47770&start=15 Among the suggestions was www.lavabit.com. I've had a free account with them for about 6 months. So far, it is entirely satisfactory: no spam, no ads, no frills. Regards, Wognath

gmx
Username: MU
"yes, gmx is good, I use gmx.de for free since 1996 or so. It is located in the city where i live :) Includes 1 gig of space for mails, and has a good spamprotection. And it can be used with mailclients like sylpheed easily. Mark

Opera Mail
Username: Terryphi
"Try Opera Mail which uses the infrastructure of the highly regarded Aussie Fastmail service which Opera acquired a while ago. You do not have to use Opera browser to use the service - you can use Seamonkey if you really must. ;) https://mail.opera.com/

POP with SeaMonkey
Username: BarryK
"I decided to use SeaMonkey Mail and News module to POP all of my mail out of bkaulerATgmailDOTcom. I was very surprised at it's inflexibility. I was unable to change the 'inbox' out of /root/.mozilla -- I wanted it to be on a mounted partition. There are some settings where I was able to specify my mounted partition, however the 'inbox' stubbornly refused to relocate.

Opening multiple gmail accounts
Username: jrb2
"BarryK wrote:"The thing is, I cannot login to my regular gmail account while the other one is still open." Simply use a different browser for each account. Open one account in Seamonkey and one in Firefox or Opera.

I did some research on this
Username: GCMartin
"Barry (and others) may want to follow up on this problem. Your compromise may NOT HAVE COME FROM GOOGLE! And Lobster is correct about risks. I agree. But, in this case, your compromise may not have come from Google. And, as some useful information, should you or anyone want, you can approach Google (its awkward, I know) to get an answer of how your account could have been compromised such that someone could gain access and login. Hope this helps

2-step login
Username: BarryK
"Yes, the most likely scenario is that someone somehow got my password. For my main Gmail account, I have now implemented 2-step login. This is extremely secure, when I login, after entering my password, an SMS is sent to my mobile phone with another password, which I also have to enter.

GMail us
Username: GCMartin
"@Barry, Should you decide it appropriate, you may want to enable your desktop for email for "IMAP" so that you can don't have the 5 month problem you alluded to. Should you do this, you can "manage" your email directly from your desktop. You might notice some unexpected activity earlier, as well. Hope this helps

seamonkey mail folders
Username: disciple
"> I was very surprised at it's inflexibility. I was unable to change the 'inbox' out of /root/.mozilla -- I wanted it to be on a mounted partition. That's strange. I had Thunderbird in Puppy using the Thunderbird mail folders on my [i]old[/i] Windows partition. Then when I switched to Seamonkey I had [i]it [/i]using them. But now I have switched to Gmail and IMAP ;)

New Google ID Security
Username: GCMartin
"Barry mentioned earlier a very new facility added to Goodle ID users. As many already know, your Google ID is ACTUALLY a "[b]Key[/b]" which allows you to use it to enter all sorts of places Google provides to us. The places your key provides you is Gmail (your email), Docs (your personal document stroarge & mainpulation toos), iGoogle (your personal webpage), apps.google.com, etc. Google, now, makes available a tracking mechanism to "announce" access to your GoogleID on your cell phone. [url=https://accounts.google.com/AccountRecoveryOptionsPrompt?continue=https%3A%2F%2Faccounts.google.com%2FCheckCookie%3Fcontinue%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fdocs.google.com%252F%253Ftab%253Dno%2523%26followup%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fdocs.google.com%252F%253Ftab%253Dno%26service%3Dwritely%26ltmpl%3Dhomepage%26chtml%3DLoginDoneHtml%26checkedDomains%3Dyoutube%26checkConnection%3Dyoutube%253A1580%253A1%26pstMsg%3D1%26sarp%3D1&followup=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.google.com%2F%3Ftab%3Dno&service=writely&ltmpl=homepage&level=WITHOUT_PHONE][b]You can find information here![/b]

Tags: general