Most of Internet users (if not all) have an email account, and as email providers give away more and more storage space, more and more personal information is being stored in those accounts. People are increasingly using their email accounts for more than just email, it has become their online document storage area with backup documents such as passwords, bank account numbers, account usernames, scans of correspondence and much more. Even if you don’t use your email for this purpose, you may still be inadvertantly revealing personal information in general conversation emails to family and close friends.

If you have a Gmail account then this article is for you, Gmail got a new feature called Activity Monitor, this feature watches your account and displays a notification when someone else logs into your account. Basically a nice little feature from Gmail team that lets you check if someone has hacked into your Gmail account.

First, log in to your Gmail account and look all the way down to the bottom of the page. There you should see something starting with “Last account activity …”,

As you can see above it shows the last time someone logged in into your account and the IP address of that person. If you have logged in just now you should see it right there.

Last account activity: 2 minutes ago at this IP (xx.xx.xxx.xx)

Now here comes the cool part, if at some point while you’re logged in someone else logs into your account the bottom line will change to something like:

This account is open in 1 other location at this IP (xx.xx.xxx.xx)

This basically tells you that there is someone else in your account,unless you have it also opened in other browser or left it open on other PC (at home and you are at work).

As you have probably noticed there is also a ‘Details’ link. This one gives you a bit more than just who is logged in right now but also recent account access times, the IP addresses and the way account was accessed (i.e. using Browser, via POP3, etc.)

Here are 3 things you should pay attention to:

1. IP Address - If you usually signin to Gmail using a single computer then your IP address should be the same. Or at least have identical first two sets of numbers (ex. 212.10.xx.xx).2. Access Type - This column displays the way your account was accessed. For instance if you read your email from browser (Firefox, IE, Safari etc.) but one of the entries showing POP access, there is a good chance your account is compromised.

3. Concurrent Sessions - If your mail is currently being accessed from another location, you’ll see it here.



However, as I mentioned earlier if you have your Gmail account open in some other browser (or PC), those sessions will appear here as well. If you want to sign out these other sessions you can do so using ‘Sign out all other sessions’ button. This won’t affect your current session.

If at one point you notice that something is not right and feel that your account is compromised the first thing you should do is change your password. [via makeuseof]

And if you use a different email provider then you can always setup an “electronic tripwire” to alert you if your email is hacked.

I have many email accounts, some for personal use and some for business so email security is important to me and tips like this can always come in handy. Stay tuned because we are always looking for more tips and tricks for you.