The act of phishing has become more and more convincing nowadays; fake websites are now looking very similar to real ones. For those not familiar with the name phishing, it is the act of presenting oneself as a reputable company to lure individuals to give away their sensitive personal information such as passwords and banking details.
On Wednesday, a malicious email inviting people to view a Google Doc file spread all over the internet. Clicking the link led victims to surrender their contacts, email and other personal information. Google got word of this and they released a statement
‘We have taken action to protect users against an email impersonating Google Docs & have disabled offending accounts. We’ve removed the fake pages, pushed updates through Safe Browsing, and our abuse team is working to prevent this kind of spoofing from happening again‘
It only took a short time for Gmail to publish their update on Android to prevent such phishing taking place again. The update will be informing users when they click a link that has been flagged as forged. The warning will read like this:
‘The site you are trying to visit has been identified as a forgery, intended to trick you into disclosing financial, personal or other sensitive information.’
The user will still have the choice to ignore the warning and proceed with the visit if they so desire. It is likely that some legitimate sites will still be red flagged, and in case that happens, the Gmail app will have a section to let you report an incorrect warning.
We are sure that this new feature will trickle down to other platforms as well, only that Android gets first dibs now that it is Google’s sibling and all.
