Tuesday, July 29, 2008

GMail Security Updates

GMail has added two features that enhance security while using GMail. One is a setting that allows you to force all transactions to be conducted over an encrypted (https) connection. It's merely a matter of checking one box in your Settings. Note that this does not mean messages you send will be encrypted or anything like that. It just means that when you're logged in to your account, it'll be harder for snoopers to eavesdrop. This is especially handy for wireless users sitting in public hotspots.

The second featrure is a method that allows you to see if your GMail account is currently being accessed from anywhere else, and to kill the other session(s), if desired. This can be handy, say, if you forgot to log out of GMail on your work computer, and you're now at home.

I've changed my Settings in accordance with the first, and tried out the second -- successfully killing a session on a second computer from the first. Both are relatively minor, but the first is a set-it-and-forget-it thing, and the second may come in handy someday, so I thought I'd pass the along.

Brian Krebs has details.

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