Mountain View, California — US search engine giant Google is dispatching automated warnings to alert some of its Gmail users about attempts in China to access personal e-mail accounts from Internet addresses, according to a report by Threatpost.com. Recently, a number of users have been experiencing a glaring red banner popping up when they accessed their Gmail account, saying “Warning: We believe your account was recently accessed from: China (IP ADDRESS)“.
The issue, which came to notice on ThreadPost, unmasked that Google has blamed an Internet Protocol Addresses (IP) located in China for conducting massive attempts to sneak in to the personal accounts of Gmail users across the world.
“Warnings appeared when users logged onto Gmail, experiencing a red banner stating “Your account was recently accessed from China,” and providing a list of IP addresses used to access the account,” the ThreadPost has quoted..
Responding to a call from the Global Times regarding the report, Google said it would not comment on any individual cases, but added, “We notify users when we believe there may be suspicious activity on their account, and we implemented this feature in March for Gmail accounts.”
Google also sent the Global Times a link about the introduction of that feature.
“If it looks like something unusual is happening with your account, we will alert you by posting a warning message saying, ‘Warning: We believe your account was last accessed from…’ along with the geographic region that we can best associate with the access,” the notice says.
According to ThreatPost reports, among the apparently random victims — gamers, doctors, media consultants — was also one Alexander Hanff of Privacy International in the UK.
Even though his Gmail account is completely separated with his work for the human rights organization, he claims that it is possible that he was targeted because of a EU-China Human Rights Network seminar during which he discussed freedom of speech issues and differences between the EU and China on that account.
Hanff, along with other users, said he appreciated the warning.
“For once Google did something ethical. I was surprised to see that,” he told Threatpost.com. However, Hanff said offering a feature to limit account access by IP address would do more to remove the threat of attacks such as the one his account suffered.
The search engine giant Google quit China in March following a spat with the Chinese government over China’s Internet policies. But it returned in July after China renewed its operating license for one year.