New research reveals who’s targeted by email attacks
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Every day, we stop more than 100 million harmful emails from reaching Gmail users. Last year, during the peak of the pandemic crisis we saw 18 million daily malware and phishing emails related to COVID-19. This is in addition to more than 240 million COVID-related daily spam messages. Our ML models evolve to understand and filter new threats, and we continue to block more than 99.9% of spam, phishing, and malware from reaching our users.
We wanted to explore what factors influence being targeted by email phishing and malware and whether higher-risk users are adopting the strongest protections we have to offer. To do this, we teamed up with researchers at Stanford University to study over a billion phishing and malware emails and their anonymized targets. We recently presented our study at the Internet Measurement Conference (IMC), and it’s now available here.
We found that multiple factors correlate with higher risk: where you live, what devices you use, and whether your information appeared in previous third-party data breaches.
Phishing and malware evolves faster than you think
We aggregated and analyzed all of the phishing and malware campaigns that Gmail automatically blocked over a five-month period to identify patterns.
- We found that users in the United States were the most popular targets (42% of attacks), followed by the United Kingdom (10% of attacks), and Japan (5% of attacks).
- Most attackers don’t localize their efforts, using the same English email template for users in multiple countries.
- There is, however, some evidence of regional attackers: 78% of the attacks targeting users in Japan occurred in Japanese, while 66% of attacks targeting Brazilian users occurred in Portuguese.
We also noticed some patterns among attackers and botnets that distribute phishing and malware emails:
- They rely on fast-churning campaigns. A similar email based on a template is sent to 100–1,000 targets on average.
- The campaigns are brief and bursty, lasting just one to three days on average.
- In a single week, these small-scale campaigns accounted for over 100 million phishing and malware emails in aggregate, targeting Gmail users around the globe.
While the users that attackers target change from week to week, in aggregate these patterns remain largely stable over time.
Factors that correlate with heightened risk
Beyond how attackers operate phishing and malware campaigns, we also analyzed what factors put a user at higher risk of attack. In order to avoid singling out any individual user or their personal data, we used an anonymization technique called “k-anonymity” to ensure any risk trends that we identified applied to a broad group of similar users. We modeled the likelihood of receiving any phishing or malware emails in a given week as a function of geographic location, demographics, security posture, device access, and prior security incidents (such as having personal data revealed by a third-party data breach).
Here is what our model found:
- Having your email or other personal details exposed in a third-party data breach increased the odds of being targeted by phishing or malware by 5X.
- Where you live also affects risk. In Australia, users faced 2X the odds of attack compared to the United States, despite the United States being the most popular target by volume (not per capita).
- With respect to demographics, the odds of experiencing an attack was 1.64X higher for 55- to 64-year-olds, compared to 18- to 24-year-olds.
- Mobile-only users experienced lower odds of attack: 0.80X compared to multi-device users. This may stem from socioeconomic factors related to device ownership and attackers targeting wealthier groups.
These correlations help us understand that risk is not evenly spread across geographic and demographic boundaries.
How to stay safer
Gmail’s phishing and malware protections are automatically turned on by default. Here’s our top recommendations for what you can do today to stay safer.
For individual users:
- Complete a Security Checkup for personalized and actionable security advice.
- If appropriate, consider enrolling in Google’s Advanced Protection program, which provides Google’s strongest security to users at increased risk of targeted online attacks.
- Enable Enhanced Safe Browsing Protection in Google Chrome to substantially increase your defenses against dangerous websites and downloads on the web.
- Browse these additional tips to manage your online security and choose the right level of protection for yourself.
For Workspace admins:
- New research reveals who’s targeted by email attacks. Take a look at our advanced phishing and malware protection. These are turned on by default across all Google Workspace licenses, and you can further customize them according to the unique needs of your organization.
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What’s new and next in Android Enterprise
Many of you know Android as a consumer platform that has provided mobile data access on smartphones and tablets to over 2 and 1/2 billion people across the world. But we see Android as an enterprise operating system that spans a variety of form factors and use cases. We work with manufacturers across the globe, who create Android devices compliant with services, like Google Play.
And that means, whether you’re trying to enable employees with smartphones, frontline workers with rugged devices, create digital kiosks for customers to interact with, or build point solutions, like point of sale systems or signage, there’s an Android device that fits your need.
And as an organization, when you know how to build Android apps on one form factor, you can tailor these applications to be redeployed onto another because Android represents a common platform, irrespective of the hardware that you choose.
Learn how Android is tackling the biggest issues facing mobility strategies today, from balancing security and privacy to providing user experience and productivity innovation at scale.
Partnering with Google Cloud is the Key Behind Recent Healthcare Innovations
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It’s simply amazing to witness how some of our systems integrators employ Google Cloud solutions to drive innovation in ways we at Google may never have considered—especially in healthcare. According to analyst firm MarketsandMarkets, the market for the Cloud in healthcare is projected to grow 43% between 2020 and 2025 to nearly $65 billion, fueled by the need for better technology infrastructures and faster digital transformation.
Healthcare and life sciences communities are looking to Google Cloud and its Service engagement model partners to improve collaboration and activate the power of medical data. These transformations deliver robust data analytics and bring a much deeper perspective into health epidemics like COVID-19 to help save lives.
In the healthcare and life sciences industry, our Google Cloud partners and customers provide constant energy and inspiration–and are the magic in some key healthcare innovations globally.
Let me show you how they are solving real-world business challenges.
Improving collaboration in Healthcare
Cloudbakers and Comanche County Memorial Hospital transitioned 2,000 employees to Google Workspace to improve collaboration, reduce costs, and increase security. By implementing a system that requires less maintenance while enabling mobile access to data and true collaboration, Comanche County Memorial Hospital saves $175,000 annually on licenses and helps medical professionals spend more time with patients.
“We chose Google Workspace because it cost a quarter of what we were paying previously, offers the kind of modern features that healthcare facilities need, and gave us data security and peace of mind.” —James Wellman, CIO, Comanche County Memorial Hospital
Accessing previously locked down medical data
Google Cloud and Quantiphi supported advances in cloud-based machine learning services to reduce infrastructure costs, unlock new paths of treatment, and dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes to evaluate scanned imagery following a stroke. John Hopkins University BIOS Division has been working on medical imaging to accelerate insights from scans on approximately 500 patients from 2,500 hours to 90 minutes, and lead to more accurate decision-making for brain injury patients that will ultimately improve medical outcomes.
“We’ve aligned closely with the goal of showing that a cloud-based, AI-driven approach is robust and that it can be performed while protecting personal PHI. In terms of costs, the cloud has definitely reduced some of the traditional financial demands of our research.” —Daniel F. Hanley, Jr., M.D., Director, Johns Hopkins University BIOS Division
Improving data access with the flexibility of Google Cloud
With the help of MediaAgility, TRIARQ migrated to Google Cloud to modernize their platform, build new applications, and expand their global footprint. With BigQuery, TRIARQ can now consolidate all transactional data, past and present, into a single location to report on specific insights and predict future data from e-prescriptions to complex revenue-cycle data and value-base analysis.
“The future of this industry will need to be a global one, and we can no longer be stuck in legacy systems if we want to survive. Having a team that is passionate about supporting us in this journey is definitely a plus point.”—Yaw Kwakye, Co-founder and Chief Architect, TRIARQ
Increasing visibility to COVID-19 outbreaks for actionable insights
As part of its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, HCA Healthcare chose to work with Google Cloud and SADA to create a national portal that increases visibility into outbreaks in 3,100 counties across the country in just 8 weeks. Now, the portal generates 30,000 new analytical views each day that can help inform private and public sector decision making for reopenings, closures, hot spots, and many other population health management activities.
“This project required deep knowledge of AI, and consumer-facing platforms, as well as healthcare. Google brought together the ideal combination of product, people, and partners. Google Cloud’s healthcare-specific products along with SADA’s expertise in the healthcare IT space made this partnership the perfect choice to move quickly and intelligently.”—Dr. Edmund Jackson, Chief Data Officer, HCA Healthcare
We’re committed to building the technology, resources, and services through Partner Advantage to help our partners address this opportunity. Looking for a solution focused partner in your region who has achieved Expertise and/or Specialization in your industry? Search our Global Partner Directory. Not yet a Google Cloud partner? Visit Partner Advantage and learn how to become one today!
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Communication in G Suite: The Future of Gmail, Chat, Meet, and More
Let’s take a step back and acknowledge the sudden shift that many of our businesses and employees have recently faced in the workplace.
A lot of people, who for a really long time relied on physical office space and infrastructure to both communicate and collaborate, have had to shift how they work and quickly. The crisis at hand has become a massive catalyst to remote, distributed and flexible work. And almost 3/4 of CFOs actually predict that these changes will permanently affect how companies choose to work moving forward.
While we’re well into this new reality, I want to quickly recap a few ways we’ve adapted to try to make this change to flexible work easier on people and organizations. First, we made premium Meet features available to all G Suite users, which meant that every customer, from schools to startups to small businesses to large enterprises, could leverage larger meeting sizes, live streams, recordings, and more.
In this video, find out more about how Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) is changing the future of work.
The Story Behind How Woolworth Innovates to Better Customer Experience
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As one of Australia and New Zealand’s most innovative retailers, Woolworths is always looking for ways to use technology to give its customers more convenient ways to shop. This innovative approach does not stop with our customers. Our extensive staff needs intuitive technology to enable them to work more efficiently, collaboratively and effectively. To do this, they need to be able to access the right applications and information, from any location, using any device.
This is why we’ve decided to move to G Suite and Chrome. Changing to a cloud-based suite of tools is a key part of our strategy to use technology to promote greater collaboration, productivity, and effectiveness. Over the next 12 months, we will be rolling out Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Hangouts Meet to the staff in our national and state offices. This is the first phase of what we hope will be a company-wide transformation of our workplace technology.
We are also actively looking at how we can innovate with Google+, Google Drive and Google Sites to transform the way we approach other aspects of our business.
The move to G Suite and Chrome builds on the successful roll-out of Gmail and our ‘Tap to Support’ app on iPads to Woolworths supermarket store managers last year. The custom-made application, built on Google App Engine, helps our managers stay on the shop floor and focused on customers by allowing them to log a support ticket with our national support office in just one click rather than being tied to a PC in the back office.
Soon more of our staff will be able to experience the productive and collaborative benefits of being able to work from any device, anywhere. Geographically dispersed teams, like our merchandising or state-based workers, will be able to use Google Docs to collaborate in real-time.
Going Google will transform the way our employees interact with technology and collaborate with each other at every level of the organization. We’re looking forward to providing our staff with access to intuitive consumer technology at work and see the move to Google as the beginning of our journey towards a more efficient and innovative style of working.
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How Google Workspace Helps Manage, Govern and Protect Sensitive Data
The shift towards a hybrid work style and trends accelerated by the pandemic has resulted in data deluge. With companies and individuals sharing increasingly large volumes of information and collaborating with internal and external stakeholders, the need for innovations for higher security also escalates. View this video to learn how Google Workspace approaches security across content lifecycle from client-side encryption updates, data loss prevention, Google Vault, data regions, labels, and more!
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