Google’s sign-out bug caused by ‘routine maintenance’

Update: On Friday morning, many Google account users woke up to find themselves either mysteriously signed out, or with a notification claiming changes were made to their account. At the time, Google said this was not a security breach but had some more investigating to do. Now, there is a proper support page for the issue, pinning the blame on some ‘routine maintenance'.

Here's the quote from the support page: “During routine maintenance, a number of users were signed-out from their Google accounts”, from there, it says you should be able to sign back in as normal using your regular username or password. If you need any further assistance, you can find the support page, HERE. 

Original Story: If you are using Gmail and woke up to find yourself mysteriously signed out, or received a notification claiming changes were made to your account, then you may want to hold off on panicking as it seems to be a bug over at Google rather than a huge security breach. A few of us here at KitGuru woke up to find ourselves randomly signed out on a few devices, we have also heard from a few readers facing similar issues but Google has since responded to the complaints.

Over on the Google product forum, there is an official post regarding ‘account action required' notifications unexpected sign out issues. Essentially, Google is aware of the issues and is investigating but there “is no indication that this is connected to any phishing or account security threats”.

Here's the full quote: “We've gotten reports about some users being signed out of their accounts unexpectedly. We're investigating, but not to worry: there is no indication that this is connected to any phishing or account security threats. Please try to sign-in again at accounts.google.com and if you cannot remember your password, please use this link (g.co/recover) to recover your password. If you use 2-Step Verification, there may have been a delay in receiving your SMS code. Please try again or use backup codes.”

So if you woke up this morning thinking you might be hacked, chances are your account is fine. This just appears to be a bug with Google's system this morning.

KitGuru Says: I am quite relieved that this is just a weird bug and not a widespread security issue with Google's system. In the meantime if you are signed out of Gmail, just try and sign back in for now. We will update this story once Google figures out what's up and fixes the problem. 

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