Earlier this month, I was doing my routine sweep of my Gmail Spam folder. I found a legitimate email that was incorrectly tagged as Spam. This post is not to criticize Gmail for the false negative. I understand that it happens every so often (rarely with Gmail). In fact, I think Gmail is one of the best web clients when it comes to identifying Spam.
However, when I opened the email, I noticed an alert I had never seen before.
After clicking on the blue “Learn more,” I was directed to a Gmail help page titled, “Messages asking for personal information.” Gmail provides a clear, concise explanation of what phishing and/or spoofing is, including a YouTube video on how to detect phishing. They introduce their new service, “designed to alert Gmail users to messages that appear to be phishing attacks.” Finally, the Gmail Team outlines several steps to protect users against “fraudsters.”
I’ve loved Gmail even since I received the “coveted” invite from a friend. That was back when Gmail was in Beta. Oh wait…they still are in Beta. Either way, it is great to see that Gmail is not only identifying (and filtering) messages they deem as spam, are also trying to prevent and educate their users on phishing emails. Well done, Google. Between this initiative and your Google Flu Trends, I’d say you are doing good work. Keep innovating.
Has anyone seen this before? Please email examples to dj [at] bronto [dot] com.
DJ Waldow
Director of Best Practices & Deliverability at Bronto
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I have gotten some of these as well. The one issue I have with them is there there is no way to get them to remove that banner from a specific e-mail. They kill all the content (links etc) in the message and even if you mark it as not spam they are not re-activated.
I am extremely happy with Gmail/Google Apps but I kinda dislike not being able to mark it as OK.
@Tim - Funny. I didn’t notice that in the email I wrote about. Will have to go back and check. Gmail will get it right. Give them time….
dj
Interestingly, what seems to be a Bronto-generated campaign for the USO triggered my personal phishing filter after I saw the message trapped in the ACM.org spam filter (run by Postini, another good spam filter).
What triggered my alert is the message ostensibly from newsletter@uso.org with links to “app.bronto.com/public/somethingundecipherable” - looks like phishing, doesn’t it?
So, I check the headers and see “Received: from source ([216.27.63.96]) ” - another spooky bit. A quick detour to ARIN and I see that “Hosted Solutions Acquisition, LLC” owns the IP - a totally generic collocation site. No comfort at all there.
So I googled “bronto.com” and “phishing” and found your blog. I’ll likely continue to send my donations to USO directly to them (because of my kids in the Army), and suggest that you put something like “This message sent by Bronto on behalf of the USO” to assuage those of us who read our status lines…
Just a thought.
David
@David: Thanks for sharing that story. There is no real easy solution, but your comments are well received. The Bronto application has some options to send messages with header information as you suggested (”This message was sent by Bronto on behalf of the USO”); however, this practice is not required. There are tradeoffs to both methods.
I’d be more than happy to chat with you offline if you’d like more detail. Too much to cover in a blog comment.
DJ Waldow
Director of Best Practices & Deliverability
919.226.9363 x110