Staying secure, while using zillions of those
web services is at the top of everyone’s mind, and it is during times,
such as these that one values being forewarned of potential dangers.
Google will now promptly issue a warning to those users, who they feel
may become the target of state-sponsored attacks, as part of their
activity involving looking out for malicious activity on the web and
taking appropriate actions. “We are constantly on the lookout for
malicious activity on our systems, in particular attempts by third
parties to log into users’ accounts unauthorized. When we have specific
intelligence—either directly from users or from our own monitoring
efforts—we show clear warning signs and put in place extra roadblocks to
thwart these bad actors,” added Google in an official post.
Eric Grosse, VP Security Engineering, further highlights in the
official post that a warning appearing, such as one in the image below
does not necessarily mean that the user’s account has been tampered
with, but means that Google believes that that particular user account
may be a target of malware or phishing and that the user should take
steps immediately to protect his account.
Taking it further, Google advises that in case a user finds a warning, as aforementioned on his page, he should :-
- Create a unique password, i.e one with a good mix of capital and lowercase letters, as well punctuation marks and numbers;
- Enable 2-step verification as additional security;
- and update his browser, operating system, plugins, and document editors.
The official post also educates readers about the fact that most
times, attackers send links to fake sign-in pages attempting to steal a
user’s password, and hence a user ought to be careful about where he
signs into Google and look out for the https://accounts.google.com/ in
his browser bar. The post, however immediately adds in, “These warnings are not being shown because Google’s internal systems have been compromised or because of a particular attack.”
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