About 90 per cent of the detected victims had fallen victim to credential phishing emails which attempt to obtain the target’s password or other account credentials to hijack their account.

Google’s Threat Analysis Group has revealed that it had warned 12,000 individuals globally, who were victims of government-backed cyber-attacks between July and September of this year. Among the 12,000 potential victims roughly 500, it said, were Indians.

The group claims to track 270 targets or government-backed groups in over 50 countries in its attempt to protect users from breaches across its range of Google products including Gmail, Drive and Youtube as well as, to protect its infrastructure.

About 90 per cent of the detected victims had fallen victim to credential phishing emails which attempt to obtain the target’s password or other account credentials to hijack their account. Giving an example, Google said that emails deemed to be ‘Security Alerts’ from Google could be problematic if closer looks reveal them to be from a ‘Goolge’ email address.

The Group maintained that its findings remained more or less, consistent with the numbers from 2018 and 2017. Out of the 149 countries where warnings were issued, a majority had less than or exactly 100 threats according to a graphic published by the tech giant, while countries like USA, Pakistan, Vietnam, Laos and South Korea detected over 1,000 attempts.

Many of these nations had also recently discovered many victims to the NSO-made Pegasus Spyware attack which accessed complete smartphone information, earlier this year. The spyware is only sold to government agencies for cyber-terrorism combating purposes by the Israeli agency.

Disclosing the results, Google said that it would encourage high-risk users like political dissidents, journalists and activists to take up its ‘Advanced Protection Program’ as well. Therein, it uses physical keys and stronger overall software safeguards for using the Google Account.