Gmail users around the world saw errors and safety warnings over the weekend after Google forgot to update a key part of the messaging software.<\/p>\n
Google said a “majority” of users were affected by the short-term software problem.<\/p>\n
While people could still access and use Gmail many people saw “unexpected behaviour” because of the problem.<\/p>\n
Many reported the errors via Twitter seeking clarification from Google about what had gone wrong.<\/p>\n
The error messages started appearing early on 4 April and hit people trying to send email messages from Gmail and some of the firm’s messaging apps.<\/p>\n
The problems arose because Google had neglected to renew a security certificate for Gmail and its app services. The certificate helps the software establish a secure connection to a destination, so messages can be sent with little fear they will be spied upon.<\/p>\n
Google’s own in-house security service, called Authority G2, administers the security certificates and other secure software systems for the search giant.<\/p>\n
Information about the problem was posted to status pages Google maintains for its apps and email services.<\/p>\n
In the status message, Google said the problem was “affecting a majority of users” who were seeing error messages. It added that the glitch could cause programs to act in “unexpected” ways.<\/p>\n
The problem was resolved about two hours after it was first noticed.<\/p>\n
The glitch comes soon after Google started refusing security certificates issued by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC). Google said a security lapse by the CNNIC meant the certificates could no longer be trusted. CNNIC called the decision “unacceptable and unintelligible”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gmail users around the world saw errors and safety warnings over the weekend after Google forgot to update a key part of the messaging software. Google said a “majority” of users were affected by the short-term software problem. While people could still access and use Gmail many people saw “unexpected behaviour” because of the problem. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":105786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[18,38],"class_list":["post-105785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dr-akwasi-osei","tag-palaver-newspaper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=105785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/105786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=105785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=105785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=105785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}