Security News > 2022 > March > Chinese hackers attempted phishing on emails affiliated with US government
Chinese hackers attempted phishing on emails affiliated with US government.
According to Google's Threat Analysis Group, multiple Gmail users affiliated with the U.S. government were alerted to an attempted phishing attack by a Chinese-backed hacking group noted as APT31 in February.
Fortunately for government officials, the attempted attack was unsuccessful as all of the emails containing phishing links were automatically marked as spam and filtered by Gmail.
"We don't have any evidence to suggest that this campaign was related to the current war in Ukraine. In February, we detected an APT31 phishing campaign targeting high profile Gmail users affiliated with the U.S. government. 100% of these emails were automatically classified as spam and blocked by Gmail."
"By phishing humans, they look at it as the more accessible way into the systems and infrastructure. Gaining access through a government employee's email address is easy to bypass the technology and gain entry into the government infrastructure and systems."
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