Serious Warning Issued For Millions Of Google Gmail Users As The Spam Filter Broke
Serious Warning Issued For
Millions Of Google Gmail Users
| 07/04 Update below. This post was originally
published on July 2
While Google has dropped some Chrome
bombshells in recent weeks,
Gmail users have had a tougher time.
And it just got a lot worse.
Picked up
by the always-excellent Android Police,
Gmail appears to be suffering from a widespread problem with its email filters
which is causing potentially dangerous, exploitative and NSFW messages to be
sent directly to users' inboxes. Furthermore, while Google has recently recognized Gmail
problems “affecting a significant subset of users” it now lists the service as
fully operational, when one look at Reddit or Twitter makes
it clear this is far from the case.
“Did gmail's spam filter and
category function just completely shut down for anyone else? Everything's now
going straight to the primary inbox.” - source
“Are @gmail's spam filters
broken? I've had a sudden influx of some crazy #NSFW spam in my inbox! What's
going on #Gmail?” - source
“It is a strangely comforting
thing that I can just search for "gmail" and immediately Twitter
provides me with evidence that yes, others are getting weirdly hit with spam
right now” - source
07/04
Update: Google has responded to my inquiry and acknowledged the problem,
surprisingly pointing out that the spam flaw was actually part of a bigger
issue which caused Gmail emails to be delayed, both when sent and received. The
consequence of this was "some messages were delayed enough that they
resulted in delivery without all spam checks completing." Most
importantly, Google states that "During this time, scans to filter malware
and the most egregious spam and harmful content remained fully
operational." Google says the issue has now been resolved. That said, it
is worth noting that some users are still reporting spam problems in Gmail (1,2,3,4,5,6,7 etc)
so you should remain cautious, both when opening unfamiliar new email and going
through older messages that may have arrived during the main outage.
For the tech savvy, a flurry of
spam hitting your inbox is something which can be navigated. But everyday users
could be caught out by some of the more sophisticated malware and exploitation
strategies these emails can contain. After all, there’s a reason Gmail
(usually) works so hard to keep these messages from your inbox.
I have contacted Google about
this and will update the post when I know more.
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