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In recent weeks, several viral reports claimed that Google had issued a security warning to 2.5 billion Gmail users, urging them to change their passwords. Google now says that's not true.
"We want to reassure our users that Gmail's protections are strong and effective. Several inaccurate claims surfaced recently that incorrectly stated that we issued a broad warning to all Gmail users about a major Gmail security issue. This is entirely false," Google said in a statement on Monday.
The reports, which Google didn't specifically point to, were tied to a recent breach involving one of its Salesforce accounts. Google confirmed the hack in June, stating that a group called "ShinyHunters" was behind it. Later, it said that nothing more than "basic and largely publicly available business information, such as business names and contact details" was breached.
In an updated statement on Aug. 8, Google also mentioned that it had finished notifying impacted users. However, headlines about mass warnings and urgent password resets made the rounds in the following weeks. Later that month, the company told Forbes that Google Cloud and Gmail data weren't affected. A clearer statement, however, was issued until Sept. 1.
"While it's always the case that phishers are looking for ways to infiltrate inboxes, our protections continue to block more than 99.9% of phishing and malware attempts from reaching users," Google says. "Security is such an important item for all companies, all customers, all users — we take this work incredibly seriously."
While Google has debunked the recent reports, it has requested users to continue following best practices for account safety, including setting up Passkeys as a secure password alternative.