Be careful!
I am getting a lot of calls and emails in regard to the authenticy of both emails that look as though they have come from Gmail and phone calls from someone telling you that your computer is in need of attention.
There have been regular campaigns of emails that look as though they come from a bank for years, but currently they look as though they come from Gmail warning you that someone has hacked your Gmail account from somewhere in Australia. There is a link to click that will allow you to reset your password to thwart the hackers. This takes you to a dummy website where the bad guys (or rather their computers) harvest your Gmail passwords. Often this will be followed by similar emails purporting to be from PayPal and other organisations. These are more dangerous because often PayPal will have your credit card details in your profile…
These are all scams. Ignore them and immediately delete the email without opening it.
There also seem to be an rash of little pop-up messages that tell you your computer has been compromised, usually with a phone number to call to get it fixed. Several people have been caught out recently and let the person on the other end of the phone access their computer remotely. Followed of course by requests for credit card payment as well as login details to ‘reset’ your bank and other sensitive passwords.
Even if they have now got cleverer and target Macs rather than as previously, when they would tell you your Windows computer had issues! (We know they’ve got issues, they are running Windows!)
Same deal with the telephone calls, where the person tells you that your computer has issues that must be dealt with immediately. Hang up right away, these are all dangerous scams.
Ignore them all along with the emails pretending to come from your bank…
These are all scams.