Google takes action against spam that appears to come from recipient

Google says it has taken action against Gmail spam that some of its users have recently encountered. In the inbox, the emails appear to come from the recipient themselves, when in reality this is not the case.

Image via Mashable

Google tells 9to5Google, among others, that it has taken protective measures and that the phenomenon has to do with modified headers. It states that the people behind the spam campaign did not break into Gmail accounts. The company does not say how many users were affected by the phenomenon, but only talks about “a small part”.

In a thread on the Google forum, users report that the emails also appear in their sent messages folder and that they have also been sent to other people. A number of users note that the emails appear to have been sent via the Canadian provider Telus.

That company claims in a response to Mashable that it is aware of the spam, but that it did not compile the messages and that they are not sent through its own servers. “We are working with our suppliers to resolve the issue and advise our customers not to reply to suspicious messages,” the company said in a statement. The spam messages appear to have various topics, such as insurance, cryptocurrencies and loans.

A user on the Google forum has published a header from such an email. On that forum, users further say that enabling two-factor authentication or changing the password had no effect on the phenomenon.