Google has revealed that scammers are taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic by sending 18 million COVID -19 related hoax emails to Gmail users every day.
The company said that the pandemic has led to a great surge of phishing attacks in which criminals try to trick users into revealing personal data.
Google also disclosed its efforts at combating this bad trend. The company disclosed it was blocking over 100 million phishing emails a day. Over the past week, almost a fifth were scam emails related to coronavirus.
Tech firms have also concluded that the virus may now be the biggest phishing topic ever.
Noteworthy is the fact that Google’s Gmail is used by 1.5 billion people.
BBC reports that individuals are being sent a huge variety of emails that impersonate authorities, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), to persuade victims to download software or donate to bogus causes.
Cyber-criminals are also attempting to capitalise on government support packages by imitating public institutions.
Google claims that its machine-learning tools can block more than 99.9% of emails from reaching its users.
Cyber-security companies are monitoring the growth in coronavirus-themed phishing. Barracuda Networks said it had seen a 667% increase in malicious phishing emails during the pandemic.
Scammers have been sending fake emails and text messages claiming to be from the UK government, the WHO, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention and even individual US officials, including President Trump.
Independent security researcher Scott Helme said, “Phishing attacks always share the common trait of inciting or depending on an emotion that causes us to act more hastily or think less about our actions at that moment in time.
“The coronavirus pandemic is a highly emotional topic right now and cyber-criminals know this. They’re hoping that the typical person might be more inclined to click through links or follow bad instructions if they use this lure.”
