Google’s War Against Email Hijackers

Google is working to keep unwanted messages out of your inbox.  In a recent post on their blog, Google has explained how they work to keep spammers out of your account.  Spammers used to be able to send you massive quantities of email.  Google explained that through better spam filters, they are now able to prevent the majority of spam emails from even making it into your inbox.  Currently, less than 1 percent of spam makes it through the filter.  As such, spammers have changed the way they work.  As of 2010, spammers started hacking accounts and sending fraudulent mail from other people’s Google accounts.

As a result, the Google security team has developed new ways to prevent fraud and protect your account, as well as reduce the amount of spam.  Google explains that these account hijackers work by stealing passwords.  Essentially, they hack into websites to steal passwords.  The thieves then sell the stolen passwords to other criminals.  As many people use the same passwords over and over again for multiple accounts, one password can be very valuable to a criminal.

Therefore, Google has put in measures to try to prevent this type of crime.  Google has a program in place that performs risk analysis on each and every Google account.  This risk analysis is meant to determine if the person signing into the account is actually you. While Google doesn’t reveal how they actually make that determination, they do report that there are more than 120 variables that are considered in the risk assessment.

Even though Google is working on your behalf to protect your account, it doesn’t mean that you can just sit back and relax.  There are many things that you can do to protect your information. You should always use a separate password for your Google Account.  In fact, experts recommend that you use a separate password for each online service. Google also recommends upgrading to 2-step verification and maintaining updated recovery options for your account. With Google’s security efforts, and some of your own, you should be able to maintain your online security.

[Images via slashgear, androidnewspad & play.google]