Reports claim billions of Gmail accounts could be vulnerable after data breach - but Google says that's not true

• Gmail users could be affected in the ShinyHunters attack campaign
• Google has warned users to be on guard
• This campaign has targeted a large number of companies

A warning from Google’s Threat Intelligence Report has outlined a prolific hacking group is targeting Gmail to attack users.

Users were urged to be on their guard after the contact information of small and medium sized businesses was accessed.

Google has since notified those affected by the incident via email - but those whose data was compromised should be on the lookout for social engineering and extortion attacks. These incidents typically involve an email or call to employees of victim organizations demanding large sums of bitcoin.

Phishing risk

ShinyHunters is an extremely successful threat group, recently attacking Santander, AT&T, and insurance giant Allianz. But, Google doesn’t think they’re done yet;

“We believe threat actors using the 'ShinyHunters' brand may be preparing to escalate their extortion tactics by launching a data leak site (DLS)” the report confirms.

“These new tactics are likely intended to increase pressure on victims, including those associated with the recent UNC6040 Salesforce-related data breaches. We continue to monitor this actor and will provide updates as appropriate.”

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