Unusual sign-in location detected
Why am I not able to sign in to my account?
We may sometimes choose to block logins in cases where we believe your account is at high risk of being compromised. This can happen if you sign in from a computer or network that has been previously reported as involved in account hijacking, or if you sign in from an anonymizing proxy network. Anonymizing proxy networks are typically designed to obscure information, such as an IP address, that we use to decide how much identity verification to perform. They are also often abused by criminals to access compromised accounts. For these reasons, we sometimes err on the conservative side to help protect users.
How can I access my account from this computer?
If you have a phone number associated with your account, you can choose to receive a code on it that will allow you to sign in. If you do not have an associated phone number, you can try signing in from another computer or location, or you can visit our password-assistance page to reset your password.
If you would like to sign in from an anonymizing proxy network such as Tor, you have several options:
You can set up 2-step verification. An account that uses 2-step verification (with either phone or smartphone app) will be allowed to sign in, because you are giving evidence of ownership of the account with more than just a password.
You can set up 2-step verification with the Google Authenticator application for Android, iPhone or Blackberry. The application will generate sign-in codes for you on demand without the need to use the phone network.
You can add a recovery phone number to your account after logging in without the proxy network, and then receive a code using that phone when signing in from high risk networks.
You can sign in without using the proxy network and preserve your GAPS cookie. A GAPS cookie that has been seen before during a successful sign in will be treated as a second factor.
How this protects your account
This measure is designed to prevent an unauthorized person from accessing your account even if they've obtained your username and password. While this won't necessarily stop people who know you from accessing your account (for that, try 2-step verification), it's an important measure to keep hijackers who have a long list of passwords from doing malicious things with your account, such as creating spam or accessing and deleting valuable data.
If you think you should not have been prevented from signing in from this location and have comments for us, please send us your feedback.