A Defensive Computing Checklist    by Michael Horowitz
HOME | About | Domain Names | VPNs | Rules of the Road | DC Presentation | ChangeLog | Stats |

GOOGLE

September 8, 2024: Gmail Account Takeover: Super Realistic AI Scam Call by Sam Mitrovic. The story of a super realistic AI scam phone call that could trick a vast number of people. The scam starts with a fake notification to approve a Gmail account recovery attempt. This was shortly followed by a missed phone call where the number showed as being a valid Google phone number. Never forget, callerid can be faked. A week later, another fake notification to approve the potential victims Gmail account recovery. Again, this was shortly followed up with a phone call that the victim, this time, answered. Scammer on the phone says there is suspicious activity on the account. Note that this is a very common claim in the world of scams. Scammer on the phone says someone logged in to the victim account from Germany (victim is not in Germany). Scammer on phone says that someone has had access to the victims account for a week and that they have downloaded the account data. Scammer sends an email, and I note again, that spoofing an email address is possible. Turns out the voice on the phone was an AI. Bad guys were using Salesforce CRM which allows you to set the sender to whatever you like and send email using Gmail/Google servers. Had the victim approved the account recovery notification, the bad guys would have gained control of the account. Note that Google does not call Gmail users if you don’t have Google Business Profile connected. Also know that you can verify if someone else has logged into your account: click on your Gmail profile photo in top right corner -> Manage your Google Account -> Security -> Recent security activity.

Defending against Google tracking involves changing options in your Google account, which can be done on a website, as well as configuring options on your mobile device(s), when doing Google searches, in Google Assistant and in Nest devices. There is a lot to it.

 This page: 5 views per day (over 821 days)   Total views: 4,374   Created: November 15, 2022
This Page
Last Updated

January 4, 2025
Site Page
Views TOTAL

 1,097,347
Site Page
Views TODAY

  1,223
Website by
Michael Horowitz
@defensivecomput
top
Copyright 2019 - 2025