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Be very careful when someone emails you a Google Doc link — it could be malware

A nasty piece of malware is going around that pretends to be a Google Doc link, maybe from someone you know.

To protect yourself, don't click on Google Doc links you weren't expecting to receive. Often, these links are sent by people you know.

Here's an example I received this afternoon. Several of my colleagues have received identical emails.

Apparently, if you were to click on the "Open in Docs" link, it would send a similar email to your entire inbox, according to BuzzFeed's Joe Bernstein.

Phishing scam
BI

The malware seems to be pretty sophisticated.

"We have taken action to protect users against an email impersonating Google Docs, and have disabled offending accounts," a Google spokesperson told Business Insider. "We’ve removed the fake pages, pushed updates through Safe Browsing, and our abuse team is working to prevent this kind of spoofing from happening again. We encourage users to report phishing emails in Gmail."

In the meantime, if the sender is someone you know, check with them outside of Gmail before you open anything to ensure they shared a Google Doc with you.

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