Google has revealed a stunning fact related to COVID-19. The company revealed that Gmail is currently blocking over 18 million Phishing emails every day that are related to COVID-19. Moreover, Gmail is involved in blocking nearly 100 million phishing emails on a daily basis. With the rapid growth of COVID-19, the rate of phishing emails and scams have increased. Governments across the world have been involved in the fund collection in various ways.
The scammers have found it easy to fool people and grab valuable money from them. You should be vigilant against any phishing emails that urge you to click through a link. Moreover, malicious people have been making use of the Coronavirus maps and tracking apps to sneak into PCs and smartphones.
Spam messages filtering
In addition to 18 million Phishing emails, Gmail has been blocking millions of spam messages including 240-million COVID-related messages. The aim of the company is to ensure safer computing in this time of distress. The company claims that their ML models have evolved to understand and filter even serious threats, spams, phishing and malware.
Impersonating Government – Be careful
The intention of the scamsters and malware actors are clear. Their only aim is to grab money from the people by sending them real-look emails. For instance, you will receive an email from PM CARES or WHO with a request to donate money for the COVID-19. Moreover, there are cases that impersonate the Government’s relief packages for small businesses including stay-at-home orders.
Adopt direct navigation and stay safe from phishing
The Government has clarified that they will never send any emails. Hence, you should directly navigate to the relevant website and make payment to the fund. You should never click on the email links. Sometimes, you will receive an email, which prompts you to reset your password, which you should not do. You will have to login to your webmail portal and modify passwords without selecting any email links. However, people are still unaware about the consequences of phishing.
Gmail has integrated proactive monitoring to keep track of COVID-19 phishing and malware across the servers. The identified threats are instantly added to the Safe Browsing API, which protects users in Google Chrome, Gmail, and other products. If you are a G Suite user, the advanced phishing and malware tools are activated by default and hence you are safe from any threats.
