A screen shot of the login page and protection feature for Gmail accounts
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Google said Wednesday via its blog that it blocked a spear-phishing attempt directed at the Gmail accounts of "senior US government officials, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries (predominantly South Korea), military personnel and journalists" in February.
In the blog post, Google's security team offers recommendations for Gmail users to protect themselves from similar attacks.
The attack appeared to have come from Jinan, China, which has been a popular area for Google-related online threats in recent years.
According to Google, the attacks tried to dupe the targeted individuals into opening emails that appeared to be sent to them by a friend or co-worker.
They would sometimes feature a message in the body of the email that was tailored to each recipient, said Google's security team.
The emails would include "View Download" links that would lead users to a fraudulent Google login page with the target's username already entered, requesting them to enter a password.
Google said these attacks were designed to compromise the targeted individuals' email account.
Hackers would then use the phished passwords to log into the victims' accounts and configure their settings so that their incoming email would be forwarded to another email account, or share access with other Google accounts.
Many news outlets inaccurately reported on the blog post, mistakingly calling the incident a "Gmail hack" which quickly perpetuated the rumor that the email platform's servers had been breached.
Spear phishing is a common practice where hackers target email addresses associated with a specific organization in an effort to steal financial information or distribute malware.
In April, online marketing firm Epsilon and US federal lab Oak Ridge National Laboratory were both hit by spear phishing attacks.
Article Source http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/060211_Google_Blocks_Chinese_Spear_Phishing_Attack_on_US_Asian_Officials permits to repubish here
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