![\"Gmail](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1756773726_877_960x0.jpg\")
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The stories are not true \u2014 Google responds.<\/p>\n
dpa\/picture alliance via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Republished on September 1, with Google issuing a formal denial as viral headlines get \u201cout of hand.\u201d This story was originally published on August 31.<\/p>\n
There is a viral story (1<\/a>,2<\/a>,3<\/a>) suggesting Google has issued an emergency warning to all 2.5 billion Gmail users with accounts at risk following its recent Salesforce breach. The only problem is the story is completely misleading \u2013 there is no such warning.<\/p>\n Google has now responded, telling me that \u201cunfortunately, several inaccurate claims surfaced this week incorrectly claiming we issued a broad warning to all Gmail users about a major Gmail security issue. This is entirely false.\u201d<\/p>\n The company is concerned that the viral nature of the story is creating a \u201cdangerous\u201d sense of panic amongst users. \u201cWhile it\u2019s always the case that phishers are looking for ways to infiltrate inboxes,” I was told, “our protections continue to block more than 99.9% of phishing and malware attempts from reaching users.\u201d<\/p>\n Forbes320 Million Users Get Amazon\u2019s Account Upgrade\u2014Act NowBy Zak Doffman<\/a><\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean Google and Gmail account are not at risk \u2014 of course they are<\/a>. They remain a prime target for phishing and other attacks \u2014 but that\u2019s business as usual<\/a>. They are not at risk en masse because of a data breach within its B2B ad systems.<\/p>\n Google offers a raft of protections you can apply to your accounts \u2014 all of the Google platforms you use, and those you access with your sign-in with Google credentials. That makes it critically important to ensure your account security is robust.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why the company recommends passkeys and a strong form of two-step verification, which means anything but SMS one time codes. An authenticator app is best. But it\u2019s passkeys that are the real stronghold<\/a> for accounts. They can\u2019t be bypassed or stolen, and they ensure only someone with physical access to your unlocked devices can access your accounts \u2014 they can\u2019t be stolen or used remotely. You should also ensure you have a strong, unique password<\/a> that\u2019s not reused anywhere else.<\/p>\n ForbesGoogle Confirms Play Store Deletion\u2014Remove Apps On Your PhoneBy Zak Doffman<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe want to reassure our users that Gmail\u2019s protections are strong and effective,\u201d the company says in the wake of this misleading story doing the rounds. It points users to its guidance on phishing attacks<\/a> and available remedies.<\/p>\n On Monday, stories about a worldwide, emergency Gmail data breach story continued to come, dominating newsfeeds for Google and Gmail around the world. These Gmail data breach stories \u201chave gotten so out of hand,\u201d Google tells me, that it has taken the extreme and unusual step of publishing an official denial<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cGmail\u2019s protections are strong and effective, and claims of a major Gmail security warning are false,\u201d the company posted on Monday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to reassure our users that Gmail\u2019s protections are strong and effective. Several inaccurate claims surfaced recently that incorrectly stated that we issued a broad warning to all Gmail users about a major Gmail security issue. This is entirely false.\u201d<\/p>\n The company added that \u201cwhile it\u2019s always the case that phishers are looking for ways to infiltrate inboxes, our protections continue to block more than 99.9% of phishing and malware attempts from reaching users.\u201d<\/p>\n ForbesAmerica\u2019s 20 Worst Passwords\u2014Change Yours If It\u2019s On This ListBy Zak Doffman<\/a><\/p>\n Google says \u201csecurity is such an important item for all companies, all customers, all users \u2014 we take this work incredibly seriously. Our teams invest heavily, innovate constantly, and communicate clearly about the risks and protections we have in place. It\u2019s crucial that conversation in this space is accurate and factual.\u201d<\/p>\n That said, business as usual attacks remain a risk, and so \u201cbest practices for additional protection, we encourage users to use a secure password alternative like Passkeys<\/a>, and to follow these best practices<\/a> to spot and report phishing attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n Bottom line \u2014 there is no large scale Gmail data breach or mass warning for 2.5 billion users worldwide. A number of separate stories have been conflated into a data breach that never was, and users are understandably alarmed. Don\u2019t be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The stories are not true \u2014 Google responds. dpa\/picture alliance via Getty Images Republished on September 1, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,63785,63786,63787,63784,26113,20983,20978,61,12304],"class_list":["post-113040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-gmail","tag-gmail-account-upgrade","tag-gmail-change-password","tag-gmail-data-breach","tag-gmail-hack","tag-gmail-passkey","tag-gmail-warning","tag-technology","tag-truth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}