Google’s free website builder, Google Sites, has begun to be looked upon favorably by tech scammers. The technology giant’s free services are often at the forefront, whether its search engine, e-mail application or multi-user remote videoconferencing platform. In response to this, criminals have been using the free Google Sites service to defraud and defraud Internet users on a daily basis.
This is where Google has a serious problem. On the one hand, its free services are excellent with tools for different online jobs, making life more accessible to millions of people. From another perspective, fraudsters have an easy way to have a global presence to commit their criminal acts. By setting up an online store, they can collect our credit card or billing address information to use in their scams.
Products such as Gmail or Google Meet are more familiar to Internet users, whether for work, personal or student use. However, Google Sites is less well known, although it allows the creation of web pages. In this regard, for those who embark on a “criminal project”, it is of utmost confidence to have a Google.com domain name. A company spokesperson, through a statement, told the site Mashable that:
“At Google Sites, we explicitly prohibit phishing and invest heavily in detecting, deterring and eliminating abuse on our platforms.”
Google Sites and an unsolvable problem
The tech giant is aware of the problem they are having. However, scams using this website generation platform persist. All indications are that those who engage in computer theft are not easy to find. Phishing is a classic online scam tactic. By the same, the offender copies the web designs of trusted sites and then deceives the person to obtain confidential information.
These scams have found “fertile ground” with the creation of phishing web pages on Google Sites. Matt Tutt, an SEO consultant, confirmed to Mashable that he first “came across this scam while searching for ‘Google Ads’ on Google.” Tutt related his own personal experience of this use of phishing on Google Sites during 2020. The consultant explained that “it seemed pretty legitimate and, honestly, I probably had my guard down, as I wouldn’t have guessed that anyone other than Google could run ads for the keyword ‘Google Ads’.”
Deception to steal information
Finally, in his account of the events that happened to him, Tutt pointed out that:
“Fortunately, I hadn’t entered my login credentials, but I was surprised at how easily I was almost fooled, considering I work as an SEO specialist and have done so for over 10 years!”
If you had managed to enter the password on that fake page, all your credentials would have gone directly to the scammer.
The biggest problem is found through access by pages published with Google Sites using the URL structure “sites.google.com”. Several cybersecurity experts have been stressing the importance of looking at the URL. In addition, do not click or provide information if it is not a site you trust.
