There are some unauthorized users who would try to hack your data, such as banking, shopping, or email passwords, through a technique called phishing. Phishing is a form of fraud in which the attacker tries to learn information such as login credentials or account information by masquerading as a reputable entity or person via email, IM, or other communication channels.
If you use Gmail, millions of emails are blocked from reaching the recipients’ inboxes. Unfortunately, Google itself was the latest victim of a phishing scam.
This week, Google defended against an email phishing campaign that tricked some users into inadvertently granting access to their contact information, intending to spread more phishing emails. We took quick action to revoke all access granted to the attacker and steps to reduce and prevent harm from future variants of this type of attack.
The Android users are protected from such attacks by a phishing warning that is implemented by Gmail. Earlier, the Gmail users themselves were responsible for protecting their accounts from fraudulent emails, websites, and downloads. But, this overhead has been removed by implementing a new design scheme to protect users from opening suspicious links. Hence, now a full-screen warning will be displayed.
Smartphones make it difficult for users to distinguish between a fraud attempt from a serious email. The only alternative to identify a valid user is to look at the URL to distinguish between real and fake, which is obviously not the easiest thing to do, as it seems, especially on a Smartphone. Security apps are there but do not provide full protection as hackers can also hack those sites.
Google protects users from phishing in the following ways:
- Using machine learning-based detection of spam and phishing messages has contributed to 99.9% accuracy in spam detection.
- Providing Safe Browsing warnings about dangerous links within Gmail and across over 2 billion browsers.
- Preventing suspicious account sign-ins through dynamic, risk-based challenges.
- Scanning email attachments for malware and other dangerous payloads.
Users can protect themselves in the following ways:
- Take the Google Security Checkup, paying particular attention to any applications or devices you no longer use, as well as any unrecognized devices.
- Pay attention to warnings and alerts that appear in Gmail and other products.
- Report suspicious emails and other content to Google.
