This morning I had an email in my Inbox from Google saying "We recently blocked a sign-in attempt to your Google Account (Date & Time: Saturday, January 10, 2015 3:01:26 AM UTC Location: Oxford, UK)"
They provide a link: https://security.google.com/settings/security/activity
This takes me to the following:
Originally it showed me the IP of the attack. I then put "what is my IP" into Google to discover that it is actually my own IP, so I clicked the "this is actually me" box, and hence I can no longer show the screenshot with the IP.
My question is: what could have caused this? I went to bed before midnight; I think I closed the lid last night (in which case the machine should have been in sleep mode), but even if I didn't — I usually leave it on some radio station when I sleep — it hasn't given me any warnings before, so why now?
The page says it isn't my Mac that is causing the problem. But the only other device I have is my android phone and the Wi-Fi is disabled, and it doesn't have any 3G type Internet. I keep those things off to save battery. It did have Bluetooth on (I must have forgotten to turn that off days back).
I've also got a standard Apple issue keyboard and trackpad, and this morning the trackpad bleated about wanting new batteries.
That's it! That's all the electronic things I have. And a Wi-Fi repeater which plugs into the downstairs router via an Ethernet cable.
So what could this warning be? Someone else is attempting to sign into my account from my home IP? That's really unlikely. It is a family home, I doubt one of my family is trying to hack me, I would however be impressed if this were the case. I haven't handed down any old computer equipment either.
So I have no clue.
Can anyone think of any possible explanation?
Best Answer
This question was asked a while ago, I'm not sure if you've solved the problem. If you have, please enlighten me! I've been having the same issue (not quite every time, but almost every time I turn my Mac on). As with you, the location is my hometown.
I've done some Googling, somewhat ironically, and it seems to be a security issue with OSX Yosemite causing it, though I must confess I don't know the details.
This thread says:
However, I'm not a fan of allowing less secure apps, in case there is a genuine security issue (which this doesn't appear to be).
Another discussion says:
It appears to be a fairly common problem (Google "Yosemite gmail sign in blocked"). I have tried the solution above and haven't received any more emails, but if it doesn't seem to work, I'll update this answer.
UPDATE: It happened again, which I'm fairly unchuffed with. After rooting around on Google, I found this:
So, bearing this in mind, it seems to be using a client of some kind causing the issue, which fits in with previous suspicions. So, for anyone facing this issue, be aware that your mail client may not be using the "modern security standards" that Google wants, and that this may the root of the issue. The fix is likely to be wait for an update to the client, or use a different one when accessing your Gmail account (or select "Allow less secure apps" in your Google settings).