Gmail hacked

ninjag

ninjag

ninjag

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Joined
18 Sep 2012
Posts
549
Looking for some advice if anyone would be so kind.

A young family member's gmail account was compromised and the hacker has changed the password as well as any recovery options. Google are being pretty useless saying that they can't verify that he's the owner, despite him being at the same location and internet provider that he always uses. I would have thought the IP address of the hacker would show that someone else is accessing it.

The problem is everything ties back to this gmail account including his Epic account, Instagram, Steam, Discord etc and unfortunately his Microsoft Account including the Operating System being linked to it. The person is systematically changing the passwords on everything, presumably by doing a "forgotten password" request and the link is being sent to the compromised gmail account.

Would anyone have any advice or ideas for regaining control of this gmail account?
 
You need to keep on at google to at least suspend the account..

​

If you can’t sign in​

Go to the account recovery page, and answer the questions as best you can. These tips can help.
Use the account recovery page if:
  • Someone changed your account info, like your password or recovery phone number.
  • Someone deleted your account.
  • You can’t sign in for another reason.
Click to expand...
 
It sounds like they've been through the above, it's rubbish, but you would think they should at least check it out, see the activity is suspicious and block it temporarily..

You'd like to think either your old phone number and old recovery email address (assuming they had either) would be enough to convince them!
 
Thanks, yeah he said that they weren't very good.

I've managed to install a clean copy of Windows 11 onto it, so unfortunately it's back to square one for everything for him.

This has prompted me to look at my own stuff and Steam seems to have a weakness. I've just added my phone number as a backup, however, if you want to change the phone number there's an option to have a verification code sent to your email. Well that's not much good if your email has been compromised - isn't the whole point of the phone number to keep it ring fenced from the email account?
 
Your family member should had enabled Google 2FA when they created gmail account.

Try this 2 methods to recover gmail account.



If above methods not worked. He/she could try to fill and sent form to Google Account Help Community to recover his/her hacked gmail account.

 
Your family member should had enabled Google 2FA when they created gmail account.

Had the problem with that, lost the phone with the number for 2FA and couldn't log in took weeks to sort out.
 
ninjag said:
Thanks, yeah he said that they weren't very good.

I've managed to install a clean copy of Windows 11 onto it, so unfortunately it's back to square one for everything for him.

This has prompted me to look at my own stuff and Steam seems to have a weakness. I've just added my phone number as a backup, however, if you want to change the phone number there's an option to have a verification code sent to your email. Well that's not much good if your email has been compromised - isn't the whole point of the phone number to keep it ring fenced from the email account?
Click to expand...

The expectation is that you're supposed to secure your email. Most providers offer 2FA, this would make it extremely harder to lose access to.
 
Thanks all. He has enabled Google 2FA with his new account. I've handed the computer back now with a clean install and said it's best to just start fresh. There was only one game in Steam and also Fortnite so not catastrophic.
 
I turned on the Microsoft authenticator app 2FA thingy for my own account and that's exactly what I'm looking for. I can't access my Hotmail or Microsoft account without verifying on the phone app. I thought it would only kick in if I made changes and not every time I log in. Nice.
 
It won't ask you every time, it should keep you signed in but there is a token specific to your sign in on the device.

If it needs to prompt for it, it will do so.
 
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