Phishers Are Leveraging Google Translate to Steal User Data

Phishing attacks can be quite harmful because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up allowing log in credentials to fall into the wrong hands. Cybersecurity researchers are always on the lookout for new phishing attempts, and their studies have shown that phishers are new developing new and evolved techniques for stealing user data with all things having been considered and taken into account.

A new phishing campaign has just been discovered, and with all of that having been said and now out of the way it is important to note that it involves Google Translate. More specifically, phishing attackers have managed to successfully impersonate Google Translate so that their artificial log in pages seem more trustworthy than might have been the case otherwise.

Researchers noted a number of phishing emails that contained language that tried to convince users that they needed to log in with the given link otherwise they would lose access to their unread messages. Many of these emails were originally written in Spanish, and if a user clicks on the provided link they would be taken to a page that has a fake version of Google Translate that gives it a sense of legitimacy and lulls users into a fall sense of security.

Above the fake Google Translate box would be a field where users can enter their log in details. If the user were to enter their information into the blank field, this data will get sent to the hackers in question and they can then sell it on the Dark Web or choose to lock said user of their accounts.

Users need to be extremely vigilant if they want to avoid getting preyed on by such attacks. Any email that tries to get you to log in whilst threatening the loss of data is almost always going to be fraudulent in nature. Users also have to be educated about the dangers of phishing, because a lack of knowledge usually makes them unaware of the risks associated with opening links in emails that are from unknown or impersonated senders.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World