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Google disables all G Suite accounts in our university due to spamming

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Google disables all G Suite accounts in our university due to spamming

#1
On November 5, several students reported that they cannot access their G Suite accounts. Google seems to disable all G Suite accounts in National Taiwan University (@g.ntu.edu.tw) due to spamming.

> "Your account is disabled due to spamming." https://i.imgur.com/G2ZCkcE.jpg (in traditional Chinese)

Fortunately, most services in the university do not depend on G Suite. They depend on a unversity account (@ntu.edu.tw).

Re: Google disables all G Suite accounts in our university due to spamming

#2
Sounds like something Google and that University need to work out. I am curious about what happened that they needed to shutdown G Suite.

My understanding is Google is a bit less likely to go full ban and just lock you out with no recourse with G Suite than regular services.

Re: Google disables all G Suite accounts in our university due to spamming

#4
post #2

Sounds like something Google and that University need to work out. I am curious about what happened that they needed to shutdown G Suite. My understanding is Google is a bit less likely to go full ban and just lock you out with no recourse with G Suite than regular services.

What might have happened is that an admin account of the university has been hacked, and someone is abusing it for spam.

Re: Google disables all G Suite accounts in our university due to spamming

#5
I wonder if they haven’t turned off the ability to use third party mail clients and enforce 2FA. It’s possible their accounts were compromised and someone was sending mail as them without their knowledge.

If the university has compromised credentials and allows third party mail clients to access without 2FA/unique codes enabled, then they’ve opened themselves up to being spammers.

Re: Google disables all G Suite accounts in our university due to spamming

#8
post #6

Trusting Google, an American company. While it is sad you shouldn't trust a foreign company nonetheless an American one.

I don't know there is something inherently not trustworthy about Google or American company.

I think the main problem with Google (and perhaps part of the reason why Google is great in the first place) is that Google relies too heavily on algo solutions and when the algo makes a mistake, you cannot get to a real person for support

Re: Google disables all G Suite accounts in our university due to spamming

#10
post #4
post #2

Sounds like something Google and that University need to work out. I am curious about what happened that they needed to shutdown G Suite. My understanding is Google is a bit less likely to go full ban and just lock you out with no recourse with G Suite than regular services.

What might have happened is that an admin account of the university has been hacked, and someone is abusing it for spam.

Or a large number of accounts were created with placeholder credentials which were compromised in mass -- for example, passwords set to dummy values like "changeme", or to predictable values like the student's last name.
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