The holiday season is a warm time for family reunions and exchanging gifts, but it is also a peak period for online scammers looking to steal personal information. To address this challenge, Google has been continuously upgrading the security features of Gmail this year, aiming to intercept scam emails before they reach users' inboxes.
According to a blog post published this week by Andy Wen, Senior Director of Product Management at Google, the number of scam emails received by Gmail users in the first month of the 2024 holiday season has decreased by 35% compared to the same period last year. This significant improvement is largely attributed to artificial intelligence.
Google has developed a series of AI models that significantly enhance Gmail's cybersecurity capabilities, with one large language model (LLM) trained on phishing, malware, and spam being particularly crucial. This alone has enabled Gmail to review user-reported spam at a rate 1000 times higher each day, and it can intercept 20% more spam than before.
Despite this, even the most advanced AI cannot completely eliminate all spam. Google also shared three common scam tactics that are frequently seen this holiday season, reminding users to stay vigilant:
Fake Invoice Scams: Scammers send fake invoices to users, enticing them to call and "verify" the supposed "charges," convincing victims to make payments during the call. While this scam method is not new, it is particularly rampant during the holiday season.
Celebrity Endorsement Scams: Recently, a large number of scam emails have been linked to celebrities. These emails either impersonate the celebrities themselves or claim that a celebrity is endorsing a certain product. Although these connections may sometimes seem far-fetched, the goal is to exploit celebrity influence to build trust and lure users into participating in "too good to be true" schemes.
Extortion Scams: These types of scam emails are particularly malicious and panic-inducing. Victims receive emails containing their home address and sometimes even photos of their houses. The content of the emails usually includes personal threats or threats to expose alleged personal information obtained through hacking.
To protect themselves, Google advises users to remain cautious with suspicious emails before clicking on links or taking actions, carefully check for any anomalies in the email details, refrain from transferring money to unfamiliar individuals, and mark any suspicious emails as spam. This way, Gmail can better identify and intercept similar emails in the future.
