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December 11, 2014

Google Drops Support for Security Questions

This is not that new, but I thought it's worth sharing. Google no longer supports security questions and you can't use them to access your account if you forget your password.

The "security question" section of the Google Account settings page informs users that "We no longer support security questions as a way to access your account. Please consider adding a recovery phone or recovery email address to keep your account secure." You can only delete your security question.


Security questions weren't a great way to protect an account since many answers could be guessed or found using a Google search. For example, Sarah Palin had her Yahoo email account compromised by someone who found the answers to her secret questions. "The hacker simply reset Palin's password using her birthdate, ZIP code and information about where she met her spouse — the security question on her Yahoo account, which was answered (Wasilla High) by a simple Google search."

5 comments:

  1. If Google has already dropped "Security Question" as an option, why it still allows me the option when I signed into an account that I have not signed in for a while? When I answered the question correctly, it rejected it. Google system is generally thorough and smart. They dropped the ball on this one.

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  2. once you delete it..i went ot change my security question and now its vanished lol...

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  3. Nonsense...i wan't my security question back!

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  4. Well, I thought that security questions were a great way to regain access to a locked account by requiring the user to enter the answer to an OBSCURE question. Apparently, the answer to her security question had either been previously made public, or someone did some quick math. She would have been better served by answering a security question with an answer based on opinion/fact (favorite nephew's nickname).

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  5. I wish Google would be smart enough to allow me these:
    1) no additional protection (besides user name and password)
    2) security question (optional, I type my own question)
    3) recovery by other mail (optional)
    3) recovery by phone (optional)

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