unexpected Google alert

March 2, 2022 6:55 AM

This morning, I received a notification from the Gmail app on my iPhone that said "New sign-in on Windows: Your Google account was signed in to. Not you? Secure your account." I was on my phone at the time so I don't know what prompted this. I have changed my password and nothing seems amiss, but what could have happened here? I have 2-step verification turned on and have occasionally gotten messages in the past that asked "is this you logging in?" so why would that not have happened here?
posted by oakroom to Technology (5 answers total)

Check this and this if you haven't already. That can help narrow down if it's a complete false alarm, something legitimate (Windows will periodically wake itself up and something might have triggered reauthentication), or something that you need to be concerned with.
posted by Candleman at 10:34 AM on March 2, 2022

I get the same thing maybe once a year, or even less often. I'm never sure what triggered the notification, but I don't think it's someone hacking into my account. In any case, if you change your password and have two-step verification turned on, you should be OK.
posted by JD Sockinger at 11:53 AM on March 2, 2022

I wonder if this could a fishing attack - you could check in the link in email to see if it is legit link back to google.
posted by metahawk at 1:12 PM on March 2, 2022

Is your email the recovery email for someone else? The wording is usually different for emails related to recovery associations, though.

I get something similar once in a blue moon at times where I know I haven't logged into anything different - I assume they're some kind of phishing attempt and ignore them.
posted by dg at 2:56 PM on March 2, 2022

Best answer: I actually figured this out, and am belatedly returning to provide the explanation for anyone else with similar issues in the future!

It was a notification on my home screen from the Gmail app, so it didn't seem likely that it was a phishing attempt.

Eventually, I realized that I had logged in to another Google account on my phone to do some work on the Youtube account for an organization I am associated with, and hadn't logged out. The alert that I got was for someone else logging in to that account.

On the bright side, it did get me to change my Google password, which I hadn't done for a couple of years.
posted by oakroom at 10:05 AM on March 22, 2022 [1 favorite]