Game designer Jane McGonigal has advised all Pixel owners not to entrust their devices to Google's repair service. Otherwise, there is a risk that your smartphone will be hacked and your sensitive information will be exposed to third parties. That's exactly what happened to Jane McGonigal, who gave her Pixel 5a to a Google repair service in Texas.
She claims that after she handed in her smartphone for repair, someone without her knowledge logged into her email, Dropbox, Google Disk and used her email account to back up her photos. On examining her activity log, she found that the unknown persons were looking at her photos. In particular, they showed a heightened interest in pictures where the smartphone owner was pictured in a swimming costume, sportswear and form-fitting dresses. In doing so, the attacker deleted Google security notifications from backup email accounts.
Google has now said that an investigation into the incident has been launched. The company itself, in its repair manual, recommends that before sending a smartphone in for repair, users back up and then erase all data from the device. Admittedly, far from it, this can be done based on the nature of the breakdown that has occurred.
Jane McGonigal is not the only one who has encountered a similar situation. A Reddit forum posted a testimonial from a user who said that after his wife's smartphone was sent for repair to a Google service centre in the same Texas, someone used her social media pages to send out nude photos of a man. What's more, a PayPal account was accessed and a $5 payment was made to an unknown person's account.
You must be logged in to post a comment.