Google Responds to Reports of Unexpected Account Sign-Outs

[MacRumors]

Google has responded to multiple reports of users being unexpectedly logged out of their Google accounts, in order to assuage fears that the logouts were security related.

The unexpected sign-outs began on Thursday night and continued through Friday, affecting multiple services including Gmail, Chromecast, YouTube, and Google Play.

During routine maintenance, a number of users were signed-out from their Google accounts. This may have resulted in you being signed out of your account or seeing a notification about "A change in your Google account" or "Account Action Required".

We hear your concerns that this appeared to potentially be phishing or another type of security issue. We can assure you that the security of your account was never in danger as a result of this issue.

Google said the issue with its Google Accounts engine also caused some Google Wifi and OnHub devices to automatically revert to factory settings. "Unfortunately, these devices need to be set up again," said Google. "We'd like to share our sincerest apologies for the inconvenience." Instructions on re-setting the Wi-Fi devices can be found here.

We know some of you had issues signing in today. Please try again now. Rest easy -- your account's security was not affected. - Google (@Google) February 24, 2017

The reports initially caused some concern among users, coming in just hours after it was revealed that content delivery network CloudFare had been informed by Google of a bug that leaked memory, which could potentially contain private information cached by search engines.

Cloudflare worked with the affected search engines, including Google, Yahoo, and Bing, to erase any remnants of the sensitive data from their caches, and the bug has since been patched.

Article Link: Google Responds to Reports of Unexpected Account Sign-Outs

 

[kytiger]

And this is why I won't be buying Google Wifi. Really poor design that it reverts to factory defaults on something like this.

Not to mention the trust issues with Google.

 

[Robert.Walter]

Im no fan of Google, but their transparency here is to be commended.

I wish Apple would take a note; they never bothered to come clean on their recently discovered (and quickly corrected) excessive retention of customer iCloud sync data.

 

[PhillyGuy72]

Yeah I had to sign in again with no problem, I didn't get a "A change in your Google account" or "Account Action Required" notification...but seeing the explanation I'm totally fine with this.

I get notifications to 2 other non-Gmail accounts if I make any changes, log in from another computer, or a suspicious log in is attempted.

 

[robotica]

This happened to me on my YouTube account on my smart tv and my gmail accounts on my phone and iPad.

Was slightly concerned, very strange. Glad google has explained the situation though.

 

[1050792]

And this is why I won't be buying Google Wifi. Really poor design that it reverts to factory defaults on something like this.

Not to mention the trust issues with Google.

Because Apple doesnt make poor design choices also. Talking about trust? *cough* Icloud celebrity hack.

 

[freediverx]

Because Apple doesnt make poor design choices also. Talking about trust? *cough* Icloud celebrity hack.

1) Apple's track record on security (and especially privacy) is far better than Google's or Facebook's.

2) Stop repeating that old tripe. Apple's services have never been hacked. The incident you're alluding to involved celebrities having their weak passwords compromised on other services through social engineering, after which the attackers were able to gain access to their Apple accounts because they foolishly used the same password everywhere.

While Apple subsequently strengthened security for their password reset system in one particular area, that weakness was not exploited during the celebrity hack.

 

[boswald]

I'd rather them reset my router for my safety than scramble to make a patch for damage control.

 

[smacrumon]

Personally, I wouldn't trust a statement from Google's marketing and media relations.

When trying to do a Google search earlier, I was actually presented with a page telling me there was unual activity from my IP address and asking me to click a checkbox and verify that I was a human using the CAPTCHA method to verify.

It was odd and unexpected.

 

[thisisnotmyname]

When I logged back in I was prompted to accept some higher level of information sharing for advertisement across partners. I just assumed they kicked me out as a chance to throw that in front of me and hope I would click accept without reading.

 

[burgman]

And this is why I won't be buying Google Wifi. Really poor design that it reverts to factory defaults on something like this.

Not to mention the trust issues with Google.

No clue how all consumer managed mesh routers work is my guess

 

[dominiongamma]

I don't mind this happening cause it doesn't go down very often as iCloud does which I could never use the email service part of it.
[doublepost=1488034616][/doublepost]

1) Apple's track record on security (and especially privacy) is far better than Google's or Facebook's.

2) Stop repeating that old tripe. Apple's services have never been hacked. The incident you're alluding to involved celebrities having their weak passwords compromised on other services through social engineering, after which the attackers were able to gain access to their Apple accounts because they foolishly used the same password everywhere.

While Apple subsequently strengthened security for their password reset system in one particular area, that weakness was not exploited during the celebrity hack.

Problem is the service goes down way too often with outages

 

[burgman]

1) Apple's track record on security (and especially privacy) is far better than Google's or Facebook's.

2) Stop repeating that old tripe. Apple's services have never been hacked. The incident you're alluding to involved celebrities having their weak passwords compromised on other services through social engineering, after which the attackers were able to gain access to their Apple accounts because they foolishly used the same password everywhere.

While Apple subsequently strengthened security for their password reset system in one particular area, that weakness was not exploited during the celebrity hack.

Really, I must have missed Apple's worldwide zero day exploits work the Google does. Apple covers themselves, Google's testing is far more extensive just Apple it, ahh I mean Google it Compare Apple Store apps privacy and collection description vs Google play. Night and day difference, plus updates won't install if there is a change in what the app can collect until you approve it. Apple just says "trust us"

 

[nwcs]

I was wondering about this. Nice to read a comment at least on why I suddenly got logged out. No skin off my back. I have to do so much at work now for security audits and code security that this is something I'll expect to see more of than less.

 

[lazyrighteye]

"Rest easy..."

In my experience, when someone has to tell you to trust them, you're already F'd.

 

[thisisnotmyname]

Really, I must have missed Apple's worldwide zero day exploits work the Google does. Apple covers themselves, Google's testing is far more extensive just Apple it, ahh I mean Google it Compare Apple Store apps privacy and collection description vs Google play. Night and day difference, plus updates won't install if there is a change in what the app can collect until you approve it. Apple just says "trust us"

Are you trying to make that case that Google is a better steward in collection and use of private data than Apple? These must be "alternate facts" by obfuscating through references to descriptions of what third parties do rather than face the way in which Google and Apple commoditize their users data (as in Google's primary revenue stream and Apple going out of their way to stop it).

 

[stars_fan]

Really, I must have missed Apple's worldwide zero day exploits work the Google does. Apple covers themselves, Google's testing is far more extensive just Apple it, ahh I mean Google it Compare Apple Store apps privacy and collection description vs Google play. Night and day difference, plus updates won't install if there is a change in what the app can collect until you approve it. Apple just says "trust us"

They're reporting bugs in other products to help pass blame when their insecure OS is in the spotlight. Google isn't a good guy by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[H2SO4]

1) Apple's track record on security (and especially privacy) is far better than Google's or Facebook's.

2) Stop repeating that old tripe. Apple's services have never been hacked. The incident you're alluding to involved celebrities having their weak passwords compromised on other services through social engineering, after which the attackers were able to gain access to their Apple accounts because they foolishly used the same password everywhere.

While Apple subsequently strengthened security for their password reset system in one particular area, that weakness was not exploited during the celebrity hack.

You don't know that.

 

[jrlcopy]

I was signed out after I installed the iOS update the other day, no biggie, would rather it sign me out of all my devices than anything else.

 

[gtg465x]

And this is why I won't be buying Google Wifi. Really poor design that it reverts to factory defaults on something like this.

Not to mention the trust issues with Google.

It's called a bug. It wasn't designed to do that. Everything with software has bugs.
[doublepost=1488041242][/doublepost]

1) Apple's track record on security (and especially privacy) is far better than Google's or Facebook's.

Security and privacy are not the same thing. Apple does have a better track record with privacy, but I would argue Google is ahead of Apple in the security game. For one, they offered 2 factor authentication long before Apple. Also, more vulnerabilities are typically found in Safari than in Chrome at popular hackathons like Pwn2Own.

 

[mattopotamus]

And this is why I won't be buying Google Wifi. Really poor design that it reverts to factory defaults on something like this.

Not to mention the trust issues with Google.

I have 3 google wifi networks with about 12 devices total. One network went down and it took about 5 minutes to have all devices up and running. It's easily the most simplistic network to set up and manage.

 

[JosephAW]

Why do I have a bad feeling about this. Reminds me of Yahoo!'s data breach coverup.

 

[macsba]

Personally, I wouldn't trust a statement from Google's marketing and media relations.

When trying to do a Google search earlier, I was actually presented with a page telling me there was unual activity from my IP address and asking me to click a checkbox and verify that I was a human using the CAPTCHA method to verify.

It was odd and unexpected.

Hey, use DuckDuckGo for your search engine. No problems then.

 

[smacrumon]

Hey, use DuckDuckGo for your search engine. No problems then.

Thanks. Although I've used it before, I don't regularly use it. Might make it the default!

 

[burgman]

Are you trying to make that case that Google is a better steward in collection and use of private data than Apple? These must be "alternate facts" by obfuscating through references to descriptions of what third parties do rather than face the way in which Google and Apple commoditize their users data (as in Google's primary revenue stream and Apple going out of their way to stop it).

They're reporting bugs in other products to help pass blame when their insecure OS is in the spotlight. Google isn't a good guy by any stretch of the imagination.

Google has extensive documentation on data collected on account holders to review and manage, does Apple? Latest security breech Cloudbleed was discovered by Google as were many others. Apple make new emojis. Get over yourselves and actually learn not just parrot tinfoil conspiracies. Google account users are well aware of tradeoff to use their services and opt in or out.