Sending Activation Email , SMTP server did not accept the password

Question

I'm sending an email using CakePHP and I got an Error: SMTP server did not accept the password, along with an email in my inbox says that: sign-in attempt blocked! , we recently blocked a sign-in attempt to your Google Account.

Is that normal?

I'm using Xampp.

function sendActivationEmail($user_id)    
{   
    Debugger::dump($user_id);

    $user = $this->User->findById($user_id);

    if ($user==false) 
    {
        debug(__METHOD__." failed to retrieve User data for user.id: {$user_id}");
        return false;
    } 
    $this->set('username', $this->data['User']['username']);
    $this->Email->to = $user['User']['email'];
    $this->Email->subject = env('SERVER_NAME').'- Please confirm your email address';
    $this->Email->from = '[email protected]';
    $this->Email->template = 'account_verification';
    $this->Email->delivery = 'smtp';
    $this->Email->smtpOptions = array(
    'port'=>'465',
    'timeout'=>'30',
    'host' => 'ssl://smtp.gmail.com',
    'username'=>'[email protected]',
    'password'=>1234567
    );
    $this->Email->sendAs = 'text';  
    return $this->Email->send();

}

Answer 1

You need to allow "less secure" apps in your Google account settings:

https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps

See this announcement as well http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.de/2014/04/new-security-measures-will-affect-older.html

You should implement OAuth2 instead of weakening the security!