When your Daddy taught you to fish, he taught you how to bait the hook. The secret is to make the bait so alluring that the fish doesn’t sense the hook. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. Kind of makes you wonder if some fish didn’t pay attention when they were swimming in their schools.
When it comes to phishing online, we must realize that we are the phish. We have got to be “fin”nicky about what we bite on, especially if it looks really, really good.
Online scam artists – we’ll call them “phisher”men – know that not everyone of us is going to bite. They are happy to catch a few. The objective from our point of view is to not get fooled. When we get fooled, we get caught.
The Google Docs Scam
Here’s how the scam works.
- You receive a message from someone you actually know, inviting you to access a Google Doc.
- The trick is to get you to bite by clicking on an “Open in Docs” button. It’s not that the message is too difficult to pass up; it’s that it just looks so real.
- Once you bite, you receive a request for access to your Gmail account. At this point, you may as well jump into the boat. You been snagged.
- Once you have granted access to your Gmail account, the “phisher” sends a similar message to everyone in your contact list.
- What really gets your gills is that all traces of the messages sent from your Gmail account are removed.
The cycle keeps repeating itself over and over.
Now What?
As far as experts have been able to determine, no information was stolen and used in any way that smelled fishy. The scam was – or is – someone’s twisted sense of fun. Willie Sutton robbed banks because they were there. Seems to be the same motivation with the Google Docs scam.
We should be concerned because any “phisher” with the capability of pulling off this scam most likely has the ability to do great and widespread damage.
Very real threats exist. Even though you may not be able to see them, they could be lurking right before your eyes. Knowing this,
- Be vigilant.
- Think before you act.
- Make sure you are protected from phish bait before it hits the proverbial water.
You can be vigilant and you can think before you act, but you are going to need help protecting yourself. Tech Sentries is the logical source of your protection. We guard and protect your PCs, laptops, and other connected devices against the dangers that lurk in cyberspace.
Don’t wait to get hooked. Contact us right now. Let us show you how we can help.