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.

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

“Usually if you’re a vendor and you have some sort of security problem, you have to publish it,

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