Google’s Gmail is one of the most widely used ways of online communication with over 1 billion monthly active users. Due to its increased popularity and easy accessibility around the globe, Gmail’s accounts are quite vulnerable to hackers. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that Google has not made its service secure from hackers or it is not an encrypted network. On the contrary, here we are more concerned about the users’ accounts who don’t take precautionary measures while they make an account or start using it.
Before getting into the details of how a person can recover his hacked Gmail account, let us give you a brief overview of what security measures you must take before making a Gmail account or how you can apply them on already made accounts.
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Steps to increase your Gmail account’s security
- Always use strong passwords in a manner that they must include number, symbols and upper/lower case letters and must change it once a month.
- Must enable 2-step verification and link account with a phone number, which means that whenever you will sign in from a new device a text will be sent to your phone number, so you have to add that code in order to log in.
- Complete all the security checks which appear in the beginning while making a new account.
- Enable the HTTPS security by getting into browser’s Setting and click on Browser’s connection and ensure the checkmark of “Always use HTTPS”
- Update your Desktop or Mobile browser regularly so that it remains patched for latest security updates to keep it protected from vulnerabilities.
- You should regularly check device activity in order to see which devices have accessed your account. If you find any suspicious activity then change your account’s password and log out from every device.
Well, in case if your Gmail account has already been hacked or you have forgotten your password and looking for help here, here’s how you can probably get it back.
Steps to recover your Gmail account
- Visit the account recovery page by following this link.
- If you have forgotten your password, try answering different questions.
- The questions and answers are those which you might have selected at the time of setting up this account.
- If you have added an alternative email or a phone number to the account it can also be used to recover your account.
- You will receive a Gmail’s recovery code on mobile/email to restore your account
Google account recovery is very simple and there’s probably no point that you can’t get your Gmail account back unless you are having a bad luck. Google itself notes that even “if you try multiple times, it won’t hurt your chances of recovering your account”. There are three main conditions for account recovery that Google has mentioned on its recovery page and these are;
- Someone changed your account information, like your recovery phone number or email
- Someone deleted your account
- You can’t sign in for another reason
Gmail account is very important to recover if it’s hacked because it can even cost you the loss of other Google services like Google Play and YouTube or even other social accounts like Facebook and Twitter. You can further look into this Help Page to get more info on account recovery.
