hackers pretend to be Google to get into your Gmail

We have known this for some time from so-called Microsoft employees who call you: Gmail now also has it, but the attacks are more advanced. Google phone numbers and official Google email addresses are used in combination with AI voices to convince you that it is really Google that wants to talk about your Gmail account.

Gmail scam

There is a Gmail scam activity where bad actors try to convince you that you are dealing with Google, hoping that you will share your login details or other data with them. The hackers have even managed to impersonate real Google phone numbers and email addresses, making it increasingly difficult for people to notice that something is wrong.

Sam Mitrovic is the security expert who discovered the problem (via AndroidAuthority). He was a target himself. It all started with a notification stating that a Gmail account recovery needed to be done. This report came from the United States. He didn’t do anything with it because he didn’t recognize it, but then got a call from an Australian phone number that appeared to be a real Google account. He didn’t do anything with the call and didn’t think about it again until a week later he received another recovery notification and a phone call from Australia. This time he decided to record.

An American voice who said he worked at Google reportedly observed suspicious activity on the Gmail account. Mitrovic, meanwhile, googled the number he was called from and it was actually in Google’s official list of numbers. The person on the other end said he had sent Mitrovic an email and sure enough, it also seemed to come from Google. However, if you looked further, you saw that there was no Google email address involved. Anyway, you probably won’t look any further and think: ‘That person calls me, emails me straight away, that’s right, so then the whole story must be correct.’ So don’t do that, always stay sharp.

Two-factor authentication

Mitrovic also noticed that the voice was probably AI, which made him decide not to fall for it at all. However, sometimes you have to be quite strong to tell someone that you are not going through with it: especially when you already think you have someone on the phone. In any case, it is good to do everything you can to keep your Gmail as safe as possible. You can set up two-factor authentication, but you can also opt for a physical Yubico key if you really want to make it even more difficult for hackers to do something with your Gmail.

The sad thing is that these types of scams don’t stop there, because they try to gain access that way, but hopefully these types of articles will help you remember that such calls, no matter how real they seem, are now made with AI. And this also applies, for example, to people whose children suddenly ask for money: even there, entire voice profiles are created with just a few words from a social media video, making you think you are talking to your child on the phone. It sometimes goes very far and the dividing line between fake and real is becoming increasingly thin, but stay alert to where the question comes from and what exactly is being asked. This way you keep yourself sharp and your data safer.

Have you ever dealt with this scam? Share it in the comments.

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