Clever Gmail Phishing Scam You Need to Know About

There is a new scam where hackers send you a text that asks you about a password reset on your Gmail account.

Here is how this scam works. The victim receives a text asking whether they’ve requested a password reset for their Gmail account – and, if not, to reply with the word ‘STOP’.

Employees who have not received GDR Group’s Security Awareness Training will most likely fall for this social engineering tactic, and will respond with ‘STOP’. Next, they are urged to send the 6-digit numerical code in order to prevent the password being changed.

Of course what is really happening is that the scammer has requested a password change on their account. That request sends a code to the real account owner to verify that they actually want the password changed. And by sending that attacker the code back, you’re enabling the bad guys to complete the password change, and now they have access to the account and all the email.

Remember that Gmail will never ask if you don’t want to do something with your account. You didn’t ask for a password reset, so you shouldn’t be asked about one. Do not reply to the text (doing so will tell the scammers that they have reached a valid number). To prevent losing your account to bad guys, it’s a good idea to have 2-step verification set up on your Google account.

Cyber-attacks are rapidly getting more sophisticated. GDR Group will help train your employees to better manage the urgent IT security problems of social engineering, spear-phishing and ransomware attacks. Take the first step now and email [email protected] to request a quote for security awareness training for your organization.