gmailGmail is one of the popular email provider. Gmail is owned by Google who is the largest search giant. Gmail provides lots of features for free. Many people use email for various reasons. Our email has very confidential information.

What if your email account is hacked and your password is leaked online. It is a worst nightmare, but it is not a nightmare indeed it is a true incident. A hacker has leaked a whooping Five million user names and passwords of Gmail/Google account holders on Bitcoin Forum. But since then Forum administrator has removed the passwords.

But it seems that all passwords which were leaked may not associated with same username. It may happen that hacker has obtained passwords from other services which uses same username. But still it is a big security breach.

Google has denied that any security breach happened at Google Side. But Google agrees that 2% combination works. It may be a small number but if we calculate the total number than it would be around 100,000 users who are affected.

Google in a blog post said:

We found that less than 2% of the username and password combinations might have worked, and our automated anti-hijacking systems would have blocked many of those login attempts. We’ve protected the affected accounts and have required those users to reset their passwords.
It’s important to note that in this case and in others, the leaked usernames and passwords were not the result of a breach of Google systems. Often, these credentials are obtained through a combination of other sources.
So there is one question, how to check if you are affected? Well you can check it easily. Just head over to Gmail Leak Tester and enter your user name. If your account is compromised then the checker will tell you that you are affected.
If your account is in the list then change your password immediately. You can check your account details for any suspicious activity. You can also enable two-step verification to enhance security of your online account.