Google says it’s blocking 18 million scam emails, capitalising on the COVID-19 pandemic, sent to Gmail users daily.
The company reveals that the pandemic has contributed to an explosion of phishing attacks. Criminals are trying to trick users into giving up personal data.
The tech giant mentions that it was blocking more than 100 million phishing emails in total every day. However, last week alone, Google says 18 million of them were scam emails related to coronavirus.
The mails use a mix of fear and financial incentives to trick users into responding.
Scammers are sending fake emails and text messages impersonating the UK government and the WHO. They are also impersonating the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention and even US officials, including President Trump.
The product manager for Gmail Security, Neil Kumaran and lead security PMM for the G Suite and GCP platforms, Sam Lugani in a blog post shared some tips for admins to effectively deal with the increasing spam emails and detailing how users can best avoid threats.
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“IT teams are facing increased pressure to navigate the challenges of COVID-19. Security is at the top of the priority list, and phishing is still one of the most effective methods that attackers use to compromise accounts and gain access to company data and resources.
“In fact, bad actors are creating new attacks and scams every day that attempt to take advantage of the fear and uncertainty surrounding the pandemic,” Kumaran and Lugani said in the blog post concerning the coronavirus targeted scam emails.
“At Google Cloud, we’re committed to protecting our customers from security threats of all types. We’ll keep innovating to make our security tools more helpful for users and admins and more difficult for malicious actors to circumvent,” they added.
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