With more than 500-million users around the globe, chances
are, you, or someone you know has a Gmail account.
But upon the heels of leaning of a massive bug that could
have exposed every single Gmail user's email address, users are feeling uneasy.
"I don't like it. I think I'm going to switch
accounts" says Cecil Ward, a Tampa man who uses Gmail as his everyday
account.
A researcher found the flaw in Google's security last
winter. This researcher was able to collect almost 40-thousand addresses, in a
matter of hours.
"It's basically a foot in the door for hackers. It's a
very valuable piece of information hackers would kill for." Says security
expert, Kevin Johnson, of The SSL Store.com.
"If they have your email, they can send you phishing
schemes in hopes you go to, let's say a fake bank site, and put in your
password and username that they use to steal your identity."
The good news, is the bug has been fixed, and the researcher
was provided a reward for alerting Google of the potential hack hazard.
Kevin, from The SSL Store Dot.com says from a user's
standpoint, there's not much you can do to prevent another breach in security.
Though he offers some common sense advice.
"Make sure you have a password of at least 8 characters
that contains letters and numbers, both upper and lowercase. Change your
password once to two times a year to keep things fresh."
