Google acknowledges some Gmail accounts sending spam emails

Google has acknowledged a spam-related problem that recently hit its Gmail service, assuring they have taken measures to protect against it. Basically, over this past weekend, Gmail users started reporting that spam emails are being sent out from their account automatically.

My email account has sent out 3 spam emails in the past hour to a list of about 10 addresses that I don’t recognize. I changed my password immediately after the first one, but then it happened again 2 more times. The subject of the emails is weight loss and growth supplements for men advertisements. I have reported them as spam. Please help, what else can I do to ensure my account isn’t compromised??

That’s one complaint on a thread on Google forums where close to 200 similar reports have been submitted so far. And that’s just one discussion thread we’re talking about here.

Here’s what Google said:

We are aware of a spam campaign impacting a small subset of Gmail users and have actively taken measures to protect against it. This attempt involved forged email headers that made it appear as if users were receiving emails from themselves, which also led to those messages erroneously appearing in the Sent folder. We have identified and are reclassifying all offending emails as spam, and have no reason to believe any accounts were compromised as part of this incident. If you happen to notice a suspicious email, we encourage you to report it as spam.

Curiously, majority of the complainants confirm the spam emails are being sent “via telus.com.”

In case you aren’t aware, Telus is a Canadian telecom company. When reached out for a comment, the carrier denied being part of this spam campaign.

We have identified spam emails being circulated that are disguised to appear as if they are coming from http://telus.com . We are aware of the issue and can confirm the messages are not being generated by TELUS, nor are they being sent from our server. We are working with our 3rd party vendors to resolve the issue, and are advising our customers not to respond to any suspicious emails.

It’s been over a day since reports first started pouring in, and Google has already said they have taken measures to protect against this spam campaign. So we assume the problem should have been resolved by now. However, you should take a look at the Sent folder of your Gmail account, and if you find anything suspicious, do report to the company.

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