Google saw more than 18 million daily malware and phishing emails related to COVID-19 last week
Google says it saw more than 18 million daily malware and phishing emails related to COVID-19 scams just in the past week. That’s on top of the more than 240 million daily spam messages it sees related to the novel coronavirus, the company says.
The phishing attacks and scams “use both fear and financial incentives to create urgency to try to prompt users to respond,” Google says. In other words, same email scam, different subject line.
These scams include impersonating government organizations like the World Health Organization to try to solicit donations or trick users into downloading malware; pretending to have information about government stimulus payments; and phishing attempts aimed at workers who are working remotely. This scammer pretends to be affiliated with the recipient’s employer:
Google say its artificial intelligence-powered protections filter such threats, and that it blocks “more than 99.9 percent of spam, phishing, and malware from reaching our users” using AI and other techniques. The company also says it worked with WHO on implementing DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) to make it more difficult for scammers to impersonate the who.int domain and prevent legitimate emails from the WHO from being caught in spam filters.
The company says in many cases the malware and phishing threats aren’t new but just existing malware campaigns updated to exploit fear and confusion around COVID-19. The usual cautions apply: don’t click links in emails you weren’t expecting, report phishing emails, and make sure a URL is legitimate before providing any information, since most scammers try to closely approximate real URLs.
Google says it saw more than 18 million daily malware and phishing emails related to COVID-19 scams just in the past week. That’s on top of the more than 240 million daily spam messages it sees related to the novel coronavirus, the company says. The phishing attacks and scams “use…
Recent Posts
- Safari tipped to get AI-powered Intelligent Search in iOS 18 and macOS 15
- TikTok seems to be dodging App Store commissions in Epic fashion
- Amazon Q is now open to any workers looking to build an AI chatbot for work
- AWS Q1 growth pushes ahead as cloud revenue soars
- Network specialist debuts free tool that promises to solve VPN and ZTNA connectivity issues for good
Archives
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- December 2011