Google Chat update will stop you making a seriously costly mistake

Google Chat is your newest weapon against cyberthreats

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Googleis rolling out an update for itsproductivity softwaresuite that should stop workers falling victim to cyberscams.

As explained in a newblog post, Google Chat users will soon benefit from alert banners that warn against suspicious messages that may contain links to phishing sites ormalwaredownloads.

Google says the new feature will be available across both mobile and web clients, and will help to “protect against malicious actors” and “keep data safe”.

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Google Chat attacks

Since the transition toremote working, businesses have had to worry about a wealth of new potential attack vectors, with employees no longer operating from within the safety of the corporate security perimeter.

There is alsoplenty of evidenceto suggest the volume of attacks against employees has risen sharply since the start of the pandemic.

One of the most common threats is phishing, a type of social engineering attack whereby cybercriminals masquerade as a legitimate third-party in an effort to trick people into handing overpasswordsand other sensitive information.

Google will no longer penalize free G Suite legacy users>Google Chat will tell on you when you’re slacking off>Google says 2021 was a record year for zero-day hacks

Traditionally, phishing attacks have taken place overemail, but attackers have had to become increasingly creative in order to bypass sophisticated filtration systems. Earlier this week, for example, it emerged that hackers are now utilizingfake chatbotsto steal personal data and platforms like Google Forms have also beenabusedin support of phishing campaigns.

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The latestGoogle Workspaceupdate builds on recent upgrades for the company’s email andcloud storageservices, both of which are already equipped with similar alert banner functionality. By extending the feature to its messaging service, Google hopes to close off another potential attack vector.

The new Google Chat feature should take effect within the next two weeks, and will be available to all Google account holders.

Joel Khalili is the News and Features Editor at TechRadar Pro, covering cybersecurity, data privacy, cloud, AI, blockchain, internet infrastructure, 5G, data storage and computing. He’s responsible for curating our news content, as well as commissioning and producing features on the technologies that are transforming the way the world does business.

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