Someone Accessed My Google Search Console

A few hours ago, someone had access to my search console and made themselves the owner. Got the notification. But before I could get to my destination so that I can look at it, 12 minutes later another notification that someone has been granted access as the owner.
When I got to look at it, the first email granted ownership was a normal gmail, then the second owner was what I believe to be an application access. Not sure but those XXX@XX gusercontent com kind of emails.

The only way to delete these users was by removing the html verification file that was inserted to the site.
My question was more along the lines of what someone would achieve with such access, what harm it can bring and how to avoid such from happening.
Anybody here experienced such?

Wow. First of all, they could ask Google to deindex your most important pages for 6 months via the Console. Check that section first.

Secondly, they could be after the keywords you are ranking with, if you are big and making decent money with your site. Nothing you can do here if they got the info.

Zweistein said:

A few hours ago, someone had access to my search console and made themselves the owner. Got the notification. But before I could get to my destination so that I can look at it, 12 minutes later another notification that someone has been granted access as the owner.

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How did someone got access to your account? In today's time, even if someone gets access to the login credentials they can't do anything, because you'll get the notification to approve the login request. I'd suggest you to scan your PC and other devices where you've used that account, bad guys must have infected your machine and accessed your account through reverse proxy browser.

Zweistein said:

My question was more along the lines of what someone would achieve with such access, what harm it can bring and how to avoid such from happening.

Click to expand...

They must have scraped your GSC data regarding your website keywords, backlinks, kw ranking positions and every other detail inside the panel.

De-rank your website, de-rank specific pages, removing your entire property(ies), use your account and try adding websites which are not eligible for ranking (and get you banned eventually).

Fix access, change passwords and deny any access to your account(s).

mrneedles said:

Wow. First of all, they could ask Google to deindex your most important pages for 6 months via the Console. Check that section first.

Secondly, they could be after the keywords you are ranking with, if you are big and making decent money with your site. Nothing you can do here if they got the info.

Click to expand...

I now see why that could be of an ill-interested person. Then probably after deindexing they steal the content. The thing is that this is one of those sites that you just dont attend to so much. Wasn't even ranking for a lot of keywords. I believe less than 20 keywords on the front page and havent posted on it for over 6 months.
Thanks

JasonS said:

How did someone got access to your account? In today's time, even if someone gets access to the login credentials they can't do anything, because you'll get the notification to approve the login request. I'd suggest you to scan your PC and other devices where you've used that account, bad guys must have infected your machine and accessed your account through reverse proxy browser.

Click to expand...

I was really surprised that someone accessed it and even got the owner authority. They managed to insert an html code which made me wonder how they got it from my GSC in the first place. I will definitely be scanning my PCs and my devices.
Thanks

flprocess said:

De-rank your website, de-rank specific pages, removing your entire property(ies), use your account and try adding websites which are not eligible for ranking (and get you banned eventually).

Fix access, change passwords and deny any access to your account(s).

Click to expand...

I now see the bigger picture why someone would need such kind of access.
Thanks for enlightening me on this. Started with password changing and now will scan my devices.