Google Says Gmail Accounts Targeted With Millions Of Phishing Attacks, Each Day

Google has confirmed it has to block millions of phishing emails from cybercriminals’ Gmail accounts trying to exploit the coronavirus outbreak. 

In addition to more than 240 m of average spam messages related to coronavirus, the web giant claims it is receiving 18 million malware and phishing emails related to Covid-19 every day. 

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Many attacks use both fear as well as financial incentives to create a sense of urgency to trick users into reacting. Several examples include cybercriminals impersonating government agencies like the WHO, efforts to capitalize on government aid programs, and tweets threatening people who work from home during the global pandemic.

Google says its machine learning algorithms have developed to understand how to handle these risks, so that they don’t end up in inboxes of users. The organization aims to block spam, phishing and malware from entering its users by more than 99.9 per cent.

In a blog post from Google Cloud, the company clarified how it has put in place proactive monitoring for coronavirus-related malware and phishing through its systems and workflows to help prevent users from falling victim to such scams. 

For certain cases, however, these risks are not new but consist of existing malware campaigns that were revised to take advantage of the increased focus on Covid-19. 

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When Google detects a threat, it is added to the company’s Secure Browsing API that protects users in Chrome, Gmail, and all the other integrated products that the company has.

Although cybersecurity can never be taken for granted, all users during this tough period can remain extra vigilant about online threats.