Google security alerts

TidBITS Talk
1

I have several Google email addresses and have 2-factor identification turned on for each of them.

Yesterday and today I received multiple email alert messages from Google for three of the addresses, saying:

“Sign-in attempt was blocked [email address].
Someone just used your password to try to sign in to your account from a non-Google app. Google blocked them, but you should check what happened. Review your account activity to make sure no one else has access.”

Each time I have changed the Google account password for the relevant email address.

I use 1Password with a strong master password and am fairly certain no one has stolen my Google passwords.

In each Google account, I do have “Allow less secure app access” turned off. If I turn it on, Mail.app won’t get messages from Google.

I have received this type of alert once or twice in the past and ignored it. Should I continue doing so?

Anything else I should do?

Thank you,

David

2

I used to have my gmail address’s setup on my iPhone in Apples Mail app but I set them up manually and did not use the builtin gmail setup. Whenever I would be away and turn on my VPN, I would get those messages whenever mail wanted to pull mail from gmail.

3

I thought it might be my VPN too, but I haven’t gotten the alerts when I have been traveling and using the VPN, and haven’t been using the VPN otherwise.

David