(RNN) - Don't get hooked by a phishing attempt reeling in victims who open links to Google documents sent to their emails.
People on the internet are being tricked Wednesday by a sophisticated phishing scam designed to gain access to Google accounts.
Potential victims are receiving email links to what seem to be Google Docs from people they know.
Clicking on the link within the email takes victims to a real Google page requesting permissions across the victims' Google accounts. Those who grant permission are giving attackers access to their personal data.
Some of the emails are addressed to "hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh@mailnator.com" and the target's name is in the BCC field.
Mailinator says the emails are not coming from it.
Thank you for all the reports. We're working on it. But remember, Mailinator can't send email. The phishing emails aren't coming from us.
— Mailinator (@mailinator) May 3, 2017
Google is investigating the scam and advises people not to click on the email links.
"We encourage you to not click through & report as phishing within Gmail," Google tweeted.
We are investigating a phishing email that appears as Google Docs. We encourage you to not click through & report as phishing within Gmail.
— Google Docs (@googledocs) May 3, 2017
Google issued a statement through Twitter, saying:
We have taken action to protect users against an email impersonating Google Docs ... & have disabled offending accounts. We’ve removed the fake pages, pushed updates through Safe Browsing, and our abuse team ... is working to prevent this kind of spoofing from happening again. We encourage users to report phishing emails in Gmail.
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