Google said Wednesday it has fixed a problem in its widely used email program that allowed hackers to break into people’s Gmail accounts to read messages and pose as legitimate email users.

Security researchers in Spain exposed a flaw in the way Google authenticates its users, allowing the breach in the system that counts more than 5 million users.

The process for exploiting Gmail was posted to a hacker web site

The site says Google fixed the problem on October 18, four days after a security researcher called ANELKAOS alerted the company to the problem.

Google didn’t make a public announcement about the problem. Companies such as Microsoft typically alert their users to security flaws in their software.

Source: Red Herring