Improve your account security and get 2GB on Google Drive

Tuesday of this week marked Safer Internet Day, and to celebrate it Google has decided to offer a few incentives to its users to dedicate a few minutes to improve the security of their Gmail account. More specifically, if you go through all the steps to verify your details via a page set up for that purpose, you’ll receive an extra 2GB of space on your Google Drive account. These are the steps you need to follow.

You’ll need to take the Google security test to do a check on the different sections and then, at minimum, look over the results to continue through the process. That done, you’ll receive the extra 2GB on February 28, although you have to do the verification by the 17th via the attached link.

• Recovery information: Add a phone number and alternative email address to ensure that you can recover the account if you lose access. You’ll also receive messages via the same channels when there’s some sort of suspicious activity.
• Review your recent activity: Google keeps a log of all your connections to your account via each device. In the list that appears you’ll see your connections over the past few days, and if you see an unfamiliar device you might want to get a bit worried.
• Verify your accout permissions: We’ve mentioned before that using a social login is a double-edged sword that speeds up the registration process for third-party services but can also get out of hand if you’re not careful which apps you associate your account with and what access permissions they have. From this list you can unlink any programs you no longer use.
• Two-step verification: Armoring your account with an additional verification step is optional but highly recommended. If you enable it, any time you try to log on from a new device you’ll also have to enter, besides your usual password, a six-digit code that you’ll instantly receive on your smartphone. This makes it practically impossible for your account to be hacked.