FBI Shares Tips To Avoid Increasingly Complex Gmail Phishing Scams

Since artificial intelligence has made it much easier for a person to launch a complicated phishing attack on Gmail accounts, the FBI has brought out some big recommendations for potential scams for its American citizens.

Phishing schemes invade personal details such as Social Security numbers and bank account details. The invasion eventually results in heavy monetary losses for the victims.

Fraud of phishing has recently increased disproportionately, with billions lost to online scams every year. The Federal Trade Commission recently revealed that, in 2022, online scams resulted in theft valued at almost $8.8 billion.

The new Hoxhunt Phishing Trends Report, distributed by Forbes on February 6, has reported that there is now a 49% increase in phishing attacks able to bypass security measures, relative to base occurrences in 2022. AI-generated threats now make up nearly 5%t of all phishing attempts.

The Gmail accounts have excellent access to various applications and can reach sensitive financial data when compromised. Once a cybercriminal gets hold of a Gmail account, accessing the rest of the Google ecosystem for the user becomes easy.

Thus, in an official guideline, the FBI warned people that these may come in the form of e-mails asking them to update or verify certain pieces of personal information, usually done by replying to the e-mail or visiting a website. These very convincing-looking e-mails can then cause people to comply with the requests.

Clicking on such links will take users to suspicious sites that closely resemble legitimate sites, like bank sites or credit cards where they will be asked to put in their sensitive information like passwords, baking PINs, etc. The official phishing guidance platform of the FBI issued this advice, “Don’t click on any links contained in unsolicited emails or text messages. Independently verify the company’s contact number (do not use the one provided by a potential scammer) and reach out to the company directly to confirm the legitimacy of the request.”