How to Get Your Hacked Google Accounts Back

When Amit Agarwal realized that someone had successfully taken control of his Google accounts, including GMail, he got that sinking feeling that his private life and his business were compromised. But he got them back and has some lessons for the rest of us from his experience.

It was clear even beforehand that someone was trying to hack his account, because he would get "password assistance" e-mails from Google indicating that someone had requested a password reset for his ID. When this happens, Google sends a message to a second e-mail address with a link to confirm the reset. It says that if you didn't initiate the request, just ignore the message. It's probably just a mistake (yeah, sure).

Then one day, a reset request came through and he ignored it as usual, but shortly thereafter he lost control of his GMail account. This time the attacker had succeeded.

Agarwal doesn't really know what happened. He has a vague idea about the GMail account being hacked, leading to the compromise of other Google accounts, but how did the GMail account get hacked? He doesn't say. He uses a strong password (so do I, so should you) and hadn't logged in from public terminals or engaged in other risky behaviors.

Agarwal had the connections to get through to Google quickly. (continue reading...)