February 28, 2011 - 12:10 AMT
Bug erases 150,000 Gmail accounts

Google seems to be in trouble. Its Gmail service has been compromised by a bug, which reset some 150,000 email accounts.

‘Reset’ means that 150,000 users lost all their e-mails, attachment and chat logs. Google tried to brush it off by saying that “less than 0.8 percent of all Gmail users were affected.” But the users whose accounts were compromised are not amused.

Google is working on the problem and has posted a message saying that its engineers are working on the issue and are likely to restore full access. However, the affected users may not be able to login into their accounts temporarily.

According to a report at gaj-it.com, in the meantime, users might want to find out ways for securing their emails. They can back up emails using a free utility ‘Gmail Backup’. The app will let download all emails and will back them up. It may take some time to download those zillions of emails, but it would time well spent. The app works for PC, Linux and Mac.