KAUKAUNA – The emails began flooding into area businesses early this afternoon from familiar names asking recipients to open a Google Doc.
Don’t do it.
Security experts say it is a phishing scam of large proportions, and they recommend your change your Gmail and Google account passwords, especially if your accounts have been compromised.
In a fishing attack, unsuspecting recipients click on the link and log in which gives the hackers full control of their Gmail account.
The Kaukauna School District was among many districts to be hit with the attack.
“Due to a substantial SPAM RELAY that is impacting many local and regional organizations we are asking you to NOT open or view the documents.” read a post on the district’s Facebook page. “Our Information and Technology Department is in the process of managing this issue.”
The emails come from an account named hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh@mailinator.com.
Those unfortunate enough to have clicked on the link say it looks like a legitimate Gmail login.
In a Tweet Wednesday afternoon, Google said it was aware of the attack and said they were investigating.
We are investigating a phishing email that appears as Google Docs. We encourage you to not click through, & report as phishing within Gmail.
— Gmail (@gmail) May 3, 2017
Google later followed up with more information:
“We have taken action to protect users against an email impersonating Google Docs, and have disabled offending accounts.
“We’ve removed the fake pages, pushed updates through Safe Browsing, and our abuse team is working to prevent this kind of spoofing from happening again.
“We encourage users to report phishing emails in Gmail.”
