Beware of well-executed Google Docs phishing scam

An extremely convincing phishing spam campaign is currently targeting Google Docs and Google Drive users.

It all starts with an email that tells potential victims that an important document is waiting to be viewed on Google Docs, and can be viewed by following the offered link.

Unfortunately, the link directs the users to a legitimate-looking but spoofed Google login page.

“The fake page is actually hosted on Google’s servers and is served over SSL, making the page even more convincing. The scammers have simply created a folder inside a Google Drive account, marked it as public, uploaded a file there, and then used Google Drive’s preview feature to get a publicly-accessible URL to include in their messages,” Symantec researchers explain.

The scam attempt is even more difficult to recognize in time when you know that logging into Google is something that users are usually asked to do when accessing a Google Docs link.

But once the victims submit their login credentials, they are sent to a remote server, and the victims are redirected to a real Google Docs document in order to complete the illusion.