Greg's Corner

New phishing attack targets GMail

For those of you who may not know, phishing is a type of scheme where an entity casts a wide net to a number of users in order to obtain the personal information of a few random victims. It’s like fishing but with a ‘ph’ because the internet likes to misspell things.

A new phishing attack has appeared throughout a number of GMail accounts. If you use Google’s free webmail service the phishing email appears to be from someone on your contact list. That probably means that their account has probably been compromised. The fake email will have an attachment included in the email and when you click the attachment a new tab or window will pop up asking you to reenter your GMail login info. However, the new tab or window does not take you to GMail but rather takes you to a webpage designed to look like GMail, but in actuality is a fake page waiting to steal your login info as soon as you enter it.

Some of the tips to avoid phishing attacks include not clicking on random attachments from strangers and in some cases from your friends. If it’s an unsolicited attachment there’s a pretty good chance it could be part of a phishing attack. Also, when logging in to your account check the URL, or web address, in your browser’s address bar. If it doesn’t belong to the service you’re logging into you could be compromising your info.