Hacker discovers Gmail vulnerability that leaves any account open to compromise

A student and security researcher from Pakistan has found a serious issue with Gmail that makes it possible for a hacker to take over any email address.

The vulnerability relates to the way Google handles the linking of a primary Gmail account to another email address for the purposes of message forwarding. In just a few steps it was — before Google fixed the problem — possible to take over ownership of an email address by tricking the system into sending out the necessary verification code.