Google It is precisely one of the main objectives of cybercriminals. They can launch phishing attacks, send malware, or simply brute force attacks to crack your password. Preventing this from happening is essential to avoid everything that we are going to explain below.
What happens if your Google account is stolen
The google services They are widely used in our day to day. In fact, we could have major problems if all of them stop working. Think about Gmail email, Google Drive cloud, documents you have shared, YouTube, Google Play… It’s not just doing a search.
Therefore, if they steal your Google account, they will have access to all this. They will be able to control your email and read all your messages. They will also be able to access the contact list and reach others, see your search history or YouTube viewing history, delete files from Google Drive…
they might even hosting viruses in Drive so that you unconsciously infect third parties. They could achieve this if they find out your password, since they would have the possibility of entering this storage platform. By impersonating you, they could make sensitive documents you may have uploaded public.
As you can see, stealing a Google account is not the same as another independent service. If your account is stolen from a forum you’ve signed up for, it will be limited to that. But in the case of the search giant, it affects many linked services that you may be using in your day to day.
What to do if your account is taken away
Do you think there are intruders in your Google account? What should you do if this happens? Undoubtedly the most important thing is change password as soon as possible. This is essential to prevent them from re-entering and limiting access to other services that they may not have used yet. In addition, you should change the password of any page or application that you have linked to the Google account.
you should too look for the reason of that intrusion. Maybe it was due to a virus, some mistake you made on the Internet, some carelessness when logging in on someone else’s device… Finding the cause will help you prevent it from happening in the future. It is important that you think about what could have happened.
If you have lost access to the account, you can always recover password. To do this, you will have to follow a series of steps to verify that it really is you and not an intruder. They will ask you for information, you will receive a code by phone and you will have to follow a process to recover the account that has been stolen.
As an additional tip, it is very important that you enable the two step authentication if you don’t have it. This is very interesting, but it is even more interesting in case someone was able to break into your account. It is what will prevent them from accessing it even if they know what the password is.
In short, as you can see, Google account theft is a major problem. You should always take steps to be protected. In case they have managed to get in, it is essential that you act immediately to reverse the problem so that it does not happen again.