Google Docs expands warnings about dodgy recordsdata and hyperlinks

Google’s workplace collaboration instruments Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings will now present a warning banner once you open probably malicious recordsdata from the net, the search giant has announced. This banner already seems when dodgy recordsdata are accessed from within Drive, in addition to from suspicious hyperlinks inside separate Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings recordsdata. The broader rollout ought to assist defend customers in a wider vary of conditions.

Confusingly, Google’s January 20th announcement post mentioned that the banner already appeared when opening Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings hyperlinks. However, the corporate tells us this was a typo, and that it ought to as an alternative say that the banner seems on “links from Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings” recordsdata.

The warning banners seem like an try and fight scams that use Google’s workplace productiveness software program to create a veneer of authenticity round dodgy hyperlinks and phishing makes an attempt. In 2020, Wired reported on a wave of scams that have been utilizing Google’s numerous sharing and collaboration options to get their malicious recordsdata in entrance of unsuspecting customers. Clicking a hyperlink in one in all these paperwork sends a person to a web site crammed with dodgy adverts, or a typical phishing web site asking them to enter financial institution or different account particulars.

Google’s announcement says that the brand new warning banner is rolling out over the following couple of weeks to all accounts, enterprise and private alike.