The scam was detected by, which outlined just how it works in a blog post on its website. Victims are targeted via an email to their Gmail account, which may include an attachment or image, and might even come from a contact or company you recognise. When clicked on, this opens a new tab with a page which closely resembles the real Gmail login page, and asks the user to sign in once more. However the page is actually a portal for hackers to steal your email address and password information - giving them full access to your account. The hackers can then spread their virus even further by sending emails to all of your contacts.

And even worse, if you use the same login details for other websites or accounts, the hackers will be able to gain access to these to. WORDFENCE The scam website can be identified by the false URL address Google has confirmed it is aware of the issue, and is working to continue to strengthen its existing cyber-defences against such tricks. A company spokeperson told Express.co.uk that, 'We help protect users from phishing attacks in a variety of ways, including: machine learning based detection of phishing messages, Safe Browsing warnings that notify users of dangerous links in emails and browsers, preventing suspicious account sign-ins, and more. 'Users can also activate two-step verification for additional account protection.”. If you’re worried that a phishing email has landed in your inbox, there’s an easy way to make sure you don’t hacked. The second login page, which opens when you click on the infected link or attachment, will display a web domain a world apart from what it should be.

That’s because the criminals use a tactic called “data URI” (shown above), where a legitimate-looking web address is put in the domain name, but then followed up by a load of white space which hides a malicious link. The best way to make sure you don’t caught out is to make sure that the domain you use to log in has nothing before the hostname ‘accounts.google.com’ other than ‘and the green lock symbol. GETTY Gmail is normally considered one of the most secure email services Recent research from Norton by Symantec showed that that one in four Brits was affected by an online attack during the past year, with millennials and frequent travellers particularly popular targets. Overall, cybercrime cost UK consumers £1.8 billion, showing the huge potential risk to users across the country. Free Trial Of Microsoft Access 2010 For Mac there. If you think you have been the victim of a cyber attack, read Express.co.uk's. Related articles • • •.

Image copyright Getty Images Google says it has stopped a phishing email that reached about a million of its users. The scam claimed to come from Google Docs - a service that allows people to share and edit documents online. Users who clicked a link and followed instructions, risked giving the hackers access to their email accounts.

Jan 12, 2017. Instead, a new tab opens up and you are prompted by Gmail to sign in again. You glance at the location bar and you see accounts.google.com in there. It looks like this. Robust Programs. You go ahead and sign in on a fully functional sign-in page that looks like this: GMail data URI phishing sign-in page.

Google said it had stopped the attack 'within approximately one hour', including through 'removing fake pages and applications'. 'While contact information was accessed and used by the campaign, our investigations show that no other data was exposed,' Google said in an updated statement. 'There's no further action users need to take regarding this event; users who want to review third party apps connected to their account can visit Google Security Checkup.' • • During the attack, users were sent a deceptive invitation to edit a Google Doc, with a subject line stating a contact 'has shared a document on Google Docs with you'. The email address hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh@mailinator[.]com was also copied in to the message; Mailinator, a free email service provider has denied any involvement. If users clicked on the 'Open in Docs' button in the email, they were then taken to a real Google-hosted page and asked, called 'Google Docs', to access their email account data.

Image copyright Talos Intelligence Image caption Victims of the scam were asked to let a seemingly real service called 'Google Docs' access their account data. By granting permission, users unwittingly allowed hackers to potentially access to their email account, contacts and online documents. The malware then e-mailed everyone in the victim's contacts list in order to spread itself. 'This is a very serious situation for anybody who is infected because the victims have their accounts controlled by a malicious party,' Justin Cappos, a cyber security professor at NYU, told Reuters. 'Too widespread' According to magazine, the scam was more sophisticated than typical phishing attacks, whereby people trick people into handing over their personal information by posing as a reputable company. This is because the hackers bypassed the need to steal people's login credentials and instead built a third-party app that used Google processes to gain account access.

The Russian hacking group Fancy Bear has been accused of using similar attack methods, but one security expert doubted their involvement. 'I don't believe they are behind this. Because this is way too widespread,' Jaime Blasco, chief scientist at security provider AlienVault, told PC World. Google said the spam campaign affected 'fewer than 0.1%' of Gmail users. That works out to about one million people affected. Last year, an American man to stealing celebrities' nude pictures by using a phishing scam to hack their iCloud and Gmail accounts. And in 2013, Google said it had detected thousands of phishing attacks targeting email accounts of Iranian users.