{"id":2796,"date":"2017-05-09T15:12:34","date_gmt":"2017-05-09T19:12:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/?p=2796"},"modified":"2018-01-15T13:02:23","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T18:02:23","slug":"google-docs-incident-provides-real-life-example-dangers-phishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/google-docs-incident-provides-real-life-example-dangers-phishing.html","title":{"rendered":"GOOGLE Docs Incident Provides a Real-Life Example of the Dangers of Phishing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>May 3, 2017 was a bad day for Google as a major phishing attack spread like internet wildfire, targeting users of Google docs. However, as bad as it was for Google, it provided us with a real-life example of how the first line of defense to a cyber-attack is none other than you and me. People, not breached firewalls or lack of encryption, are often the cause of a major cyber incident, but with a little diligence, we can present a formidable front-line defense.<\/p>\n<p>What occurred on May 3, 2017 has been described as a widespread phishing scheme through which people received an email, apparently originating from a trusted source, that asked the recipient to open a Google document that was embedded within the email. If the recipient of the email opened the Google document, they would have granted the sender access to the recipient\u2019s email account and contacts. Once the Google document read the recipient\u2019s contacts, it in turn sent more phishing attempts to the recipient\u2019s contacts. The cycle repeated itself rapidly, and Google estimated that the attack spread so quickly that at the peak of the attack, Google\u2019s customer base saw about 150 messages sent per minute. It was estimated that the attack may have affected at least one million people.<\/p>\n<p>Phishing is a form of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/articles-resources\/recognizing-avoiding-social-engineering-attacks.html\">social engineering<\/a> that involves sending emails that appear to come from a trusted source or someone the recipient knows in an effort to obtain the computer credentials of the recipient of the email, to hack in the recipient\u2019s private accounts and obtain their personal information or to infect the recipient\u2019s computer systems. It is a common method of cyber-attack today and one, as Google can attest, that can quickly cause widespread havoc.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/google-docs-incident-provides-real-life-example-dangers-phishing.html\"  title=\"Continue Reading GOOGLE Docs Incident Provides a Real-Life Example of the Dangers of Phishing\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>May 3, 2017 was a bad day for Google as a major phishing attack spread like internet wildfire, targeting users of Google docs. However, as bad as it was for Google, it provided us with a real-life example of how the first line of defense to a cyber-attack is none other than you and me. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[307,88,65],"tags":[],"coauthors":[178],"class_list":["post-2796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cybersecurity-data-privacy-insights","category-levine","category-insights"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>GOOGLE Docs Incident Provides a Real-Life Example of the Dangers of Phishing &#8212; May 9, 2017 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"May 3, 2017 was a bad day for Google as a major phishing attack spread like internet wildfire, targeting users of Google docs. However, as bad as it was\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/google-docs-incident-provides-real-life-example-dangers-phishing.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"GOOGLE Docs Incident Provides a Real-Life Example of the Dangers of Phishing &#8212; May 9, 2017 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"May 3, 2017 was a bad day for Google as a major phishing attack spread like internet wildfire, targeting users of Google docs. However, as bad as it was\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/google-docs-incident-provides-real-life-example-dangers-phishing.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-05-09T19:12:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-01-15T18:02:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Eric B. Levine\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Eric B. 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