In a one-week period, Google Cloud's machine learning models blocked 18 million daily malware and phishing emails related to COVID-19 scams, according to a recent company blog post.
Four things to know:
1. Gmail blocks more than 100 million phishing emails each day; the week of April 12, the tech giant reported 18 million daily malware and phishing emails associated with COVID-19.
2. The phishing attacks and scams Google reported included impersonating government organizations such as the World Health Organization to solicit fraudulent donations or distribute malware, as well as emails to organization employees asking them to update payroll information due to complications with the pandemic.
3. Google also said it receives more than 240 million COVID-related daily spam messages.
4. To get ahead of the cybersecurity threats, Google implemented proactive monitoring for COVID-19-related malware and phishing across its systems and workflows. As soon as Google identifies a threat, it is added to the safe browsing application programming interface, which protects Google Chrome, Gmail and other integrated products' users.