Best of the Transparent Hummingbird
GMAIL report
Account hacked:
I have an alumni account through UVA that is provided by Gmail.
On 2 & 3 October this year, I believe my account was hacked and used to send a hundred or more spam emails to people who were not on my contact list at all. These emails are in my sent folder, so it was not a case of spoofing only. The account was disabled on 3 October, due to reports by some of the recipients, as a result of which I could not retrieve any of my legitimate emails.
My access was finally restored on 12 December, after I had contacted my alumni association for help. It was only then, upon logging in, that I discovered what must have happened. As there was nothing I could do about the spam emails from October at that point, I simply changed my password, disabled IMAP and POP access to be on the safe side, and added my phone number so that phone verifications would come to me in future. I was simply relieved to have regained my account at this point.
Today, 15 December, less than 3 days after I regained access, I am once again unable to login and am getting a message that my account was disabled because it was used in a way that violated Gmail policy.
I do not know what could have led to this second disabling of my account. If my account is disabled due to a new attack that happened in the mere 3 days since my account was restored, I have genuinely no idea how this could have happened — but ask once again that this account be restored, since I am as much a victim here, and I have used this email address without mishap for over 15 years, from the time it was purely a forwarding address, and through the time that Gmail ,