Beware of the latest Phishing Scam that Targets Your Google Calendar
No matter where you go online, you can expect the scammers to be waiting to try and take advantage of you. Most of us are used to seeing scams pop up in our inboxes on a daily basis. By now you know the drill, if in any doubt at all, don’t click on the link. As much as we like to think that these people are stupid, many are in fact very clever and devious, coming up with new and sometimes ingenious ways to trick us. A new study by threat intelligence firm Kaspersky has found that scammers have found a new way to target online users.
Millions of people use Google Calendar on a daily basis to mange their busy private and professional lives and this new scam is using hyperlink-embedded events to gain access to your sensitive information. The scammers goal is to take advantage of default settings that automatically adds any event and trigger a notification from Google. With Google being a trusted application, the user clicks on the event link within the Google notification, infecting their machine with a malware that can target a single machine or infect an entire network.
Mobile users a particularly vulnerable with this type of scam as most of us allow Google notification pop-ups on our mobile device screens. With mobile device a pop-up notification of the invitation appears on the device’s home screen with the recipient encouraged to click on the link.
It is however pretty easy to avoid this type of scam from affecting your Google account. By simply changing the default settings you will greatly increase your level of protection. To turn off Google’s auto event creation on a desktop just go to Settings > Events from Gmail and uncheck the box for “Automatically add events from Gmail to my calendar”
Tips to avoid Phishing Scams
- Beware of suspicious email and never click on unknown or untrusted links, no matter how legitimate they look. If you don’t trust them, don’y click on them.
- Never divulge financial information to a third party online and don’t get tricked by an email that claims to be from the boss or supplier that wants you to redirect funds or make a payment.
- If any an doubt – DON’T CLICK on links.
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John Grennan
