Friday, May 10, 2019

From the spam folder

This spam message knew it would be labeled as spam!

Gmail does more than just deliver email for the college. It also tries to protect us from malicious emails.

First, Gmail automatically delivered this to my spam folder not my inbox. Next, Gmail displayed a large red banner that states the message may be dangerous and attempting to steal personal information. A yellow warning banner is also displayed because Gmail prevents users from absentmindedly downloading attachments of such messages without first clicking the "Not spam" button above the message.

Amusingly, the body of this phishing email only states, "[p]lease move this to inbox and open the pdf file." This phishing email knew it would be labeled as spam. The sender does not know how to evade Gmail's spam & phishing detection, and is hoping people will ignore Gmail's advice.