Circulating Google Scam

A new, widespread phishing scam has made its way into the inboxes of many Google Mail users, and has caught a lot of people off-guard with how legitimate it looks.

As detailed by Buzzfeed News, the email will appear in your inbox with the subject '[Contact] has shared a document on Google Docs with you', with the name likely being someone in your actual contacts list as opposed to an obvious fake name.

This tweet gives you a good idea of what the scam emails look like:

Phishing (or malware) Google Doc links that appear to come from people you may know are going around. DELETE THE EMAIL. DON'T CLICK.pic.twitter.com/fSZcS7ljhu

- Zeynep Tufekci (@zeynep) May 3, 2017

These emails contain a link to a site that will ask for permissions to access all the details for your Google account, so whatever you do, don't click on the link.

The best thing to do is just delete the emails outright, but if you are expecting documents from your contacts, you should check with the senders personally before opening anything.

Some users have reported that the address 'hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh@mailinator.com' is included among the recipients, but even if that giveaway address isn't there, be wary of Google Doc emails with multiple recipients.

If you have already clicked on one of these links, you should definitely change your passwords, but that's not all you should do.

Google has a Security Checkup that you should go through, and when you get to the Account Permissions part, look for Google Docs and delete that too.

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