Security News > 2020 > March > Google Sees Drop in Government-Backed Phishing Attempts
Google says it has seen a drop in the number of warnings sent for potential government-backed phishing or malware attempts last year, mainly due to improved protection systems.
"One reason for this decline is that our new protections are working-attackers' efforts have been slowed down and they're more deliberate in their attempts, meaning attempts are happening less frequently as attackers adapt," Google says.
Government-backed attackers mainly focus on geopolitical rivals, government officials, journalists, dissidents and activists.
The attackers launch multiple attempts using different lures and accounts, or try to compromise an associate of their target if the initial attempt fails.
In 2019, zero-day vulnerabilities were discovered in Android, Chrome, iOS, Internet Explorer and Windows, and Google identified a single threat actor capitalizing on five such security flaws.