What to Do If Gmail Account is Hacked? Quick Guide
Summary: The article offers tips and precautions to secure a Gmail account from being hacked. Finally, suggests a backup solution to protect Gmail account data from being compromised.
News related to the hacking of Gmail accounts has become more frequent nowadays. With fast changing technology where we can be available online all the time and from anywhere through our laptops & smartphones, increases the chances of accounts getting hacked by online hackers keeping a track of your activities all the time. These cyberpunks remain active 24X7 and constantly track user activities, any loophole offers them the chance to retrieve our passwords and hack the accounts to get access to crucial information stored within.
If you are suspicious about the fact that your Gmail account was accessed not by you but by somebody else, the first thing you need to do is check your last login activity.
Scroll down to the bottom of your Gmail account page and click on ‘Details’, it will show you the entire activity list with details of devices via which you have access your account, IP addresses, time and date particulars.
What to do When Your Gmail Account is Hacked?
Changing password does not ensure that your account is now safe. To ensure that you are now safe from the network of hackers, follow the below-mentioned steps:
1.Check “Email Filters”: Changing the set of rules can save your Emails from being forwarded to any other accounts.
- Follow steps: “Go to ‘Settings’>>Select ‘Forwarding and POP/ IMAP’>>Check ‘disable forwarding’”.
Tip: Make sure that filters list is being analyzed properly and your emails are not forwarded to any other address that is not familiar.
2. Check “Password Recovery Settings”: For altering these setting:
- Click on ‘Settings’>>Go to ‘Accounts and Imports’>>Select ‘Google Account Settings’>>Click on ‘Change Password Recovery’ option>>Select ‘Email’”
Make sure there are no changes in either ‘SMS number’ or ‘security question’. Also, ensure that the security answer is the same that you had entered. As the chances are that, the hacker may not have modified the security question but has changed the answer.
3. When logged in, go to the following link to check the details of your last login; www.google.com/settings/security. Here, you will be able to find out the last login details of your account in the form of; date, time, location, browser, and OS of login. If it doesn’t match your last login activity, data in your account is at high risk of getting hacked completely.
NOTE: You can assign a stronger level of security on your account like; two-step verification for login, phone alerts on change of password or suspicious activities, etc.
Take Precautions And Avoid Looking For A Cure
To not come across with such situations in the first place, where you need to compromise with the security of crucial data, ensure enforcing several restrictions that may prevent your account being accessible to any unknown sources. For implementing measures to safeguard your account, you need to follow these remedies:
- Setting up “two step verification”.
- Implementing proper set of rules to your account.
- Selecting a ‘lengthy or multilingual’ password for your account.
The article is an instructional guide that informs you about what to do when your Gmail account is hacked and you luckily still have access to it. By following the above-mentioned preventive steps, you can provide more security to your Gmail account.
Though the above-mentioned steps can prevent you from being exploited, once the Gmail account has been hacked , there is no way out to get back data from your account. By creating time to take backup of Gmail data and deleting it from the web client; lets you can overcome the fear of losing it.
The Bottom Line
As the hacking keeps on rising, therefore, to keep the data at safe-end it is important to have the timely data backup. So, in this article, answer to all the queries like “what to do if Gmail account is hacked” has been answered.