Google and Yahoo ended security question for account recovery

viktik

Level 25
Thread author
Verified
Well-known
Sep 17, 2013
1,492
URGENT

Google and yahoo account now don't support editing or adding security question for account recovery.
Only if you have already set security question before then that can be used for account recovery.

Now they are supporting alternate email address and phone number as recovery option.
If you haven't set any account recovery option then you must urgently do it now otherwise you are most likely to stuck unable to access you account.

Both google and yahoo will ask you to verify using recovery option if they see any suspicious activity like login from different location or trying to login after long peroid of inactivity.
( remembering login username & password was used to be enough to access your account. But any longer )

If you are not able to verify then you won't be able to access your account.

Recovery email address can easily become useless.
So ultimately recovery is dependent on phone number.

Problem with depending so much on phone number rather than login password is that if the phone gets stolen then you may get stuck unable to access your account.

Also the person who has stolen your mobile phone may easily access you google and yahoo account and can do security changes that will cause the user unable to access his own account. All other online accounts dependent on google and yahoo account can also get hacked.
That means now if you lose your phone then you need quickly change recovery phone number as soon as possible in all the accounts that are using phone number as recovery options.

Forcefully asking for password from person is way more difficult than stealing or snatching a phone from a user. So google and yahoo are decreasing the overall security rather than increasing it.

I was easily able to access yahoo account just by using my phone and was able to change the password.
On the other hand google account recovery is so daunting that most people won't be able to recover the account if they forget the password. Just try to recover your google account.

many people haven't set any recovery options. Those people will most likely loose access to their account in near future.

Check all the settings of major accounts like google, yahoo, apple, micosoft and make sure you have done all recovery and security settings.
 

Logethica

Level 13
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Jun 24, 2016
636
About a month ago I realised that the list of passwords that I keep had been thrown away by a family member:mad:
This meant that I could not gain access to my ONLY (At the time) Email account.
I tried to log into my (Gmail) account with the last password that I remembered using...but I guessed wrong,and so proceeded to try to retrieve my password with the "Help:p" of Google..
Rather than sending a text to my phone they insisted that I give them an email address for them to send details of password recovery to..
I only had one email address...of which Google wanted to simultaneously deny me access to & also to send password recovery info to...THANKS GOOGLE.
Lets all have "numerous" email addresses to use for sensitive information shall we,Google?..that sounds like a genius security-step..
Better yet, lets tell people to NEVER carry their front door key and Drivers License (with address) at the same time because it is a "Security Hazard";)
 

jamescv7

Level 85
Verified
Honorary Member
Mar 15, 2011
13,070
Well perhaps Google and Yahoo decided to lift it temporary to avoid possible compromise account, however it is in the people's mind how to take care of it.

Since they [Google and Yahoo] should consider the possible hassle or complications of decreasing the way to recover it.

Other way, everything is fine however still imperfect because of users fault.
 

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