Gmail users beware: there's a new scam out there

 

I daresay most of my readers use Gmail (as do I).  It seems fraudsters are trying a new scam against us.

Garry Tan, chief executive of prominent tech-oriented venture capital firm Ycombinator, wrote on X late last week that there is a “pretty elaborate” phishing scam that uses an AI-generated voice.

The scammers “[claim] to be Google Support (caller ID matches, but is not verified),” he wrote in an Oct. 10 post that he termed a “public service announcement.”

“They claim to be checking that you are alive and that they should disregard a death certificate filed that claims a family member is recovering your account. It’s a pretty elaborate ploy to get you to allow password recovery.”

IT consultant Sam Mitrovic, in a blog post last month, wrote of a similar scam attempt targeting Gmail accounts and also using an AI-generated voice.

“The scams are getting increasingly sophisticated, more convincing and are deployed at ever larger scale,” Mitrovic wrote in the post. “People are busy and this scam sounded and looked legitimate enough that I would give them an A for their effort. Many people are likely to fall for it.”

. . .

Mitrovic noted that telltale signs of a scam include that one, he received account recovery messages that he did not initiate; two, it was a phone call, as Google does not call users unless they have a Google Business Profile; and three, the email he received had an address “not connected to a Google domain.” Additionally, the email header showed “how the email was spoofed,” and a “reverse number search showed others who received the same scam call,” he said.

There's more at the link, with added details of how the scammers attempted to gain their victims' confidence.

As always, it's up to the customers (us) to be aware of potential pitfalls, and to assume that any unknown or unexpected approach like this is more likely than not to be fraudulent.  I no longer bother answering any incoming telephone call if it isn't from a name in my address book.  If it's genuine, the caller will leave a voice message, and I can call them back.  Even fraudsters try that (how many messages have you had from callers telling you that there's a problem with your "Google business directory account", and offering to fix it for you?).

There are an awful lot of crooks out there, and the Internet has made it fast, cheap and easy for them to try to con us.  Our first and most important line of defense is our own awareness of that reality.

Peter