NEW DELHI: Google sent out over 12,000 warnings to users globally, including 500 in India, between July and September this year to sound them out against being targeted by “government-backed attackers”.
The disclosure comes close on the heels of messaging giant WhatsApp stating that an Israeli spyware called Pegasus had been used to spy on journalists and human rights activists globally, including 121 people in India.
In a blogpost, Google said its Threat Analysis Group (TAG) tracks more than 270 targeted or Government-backed groups from over 50 countries, without naming any entity.
These groups, it said, have many goals including intelligence collection, stealing intellectual property, targeting dissidents and activists, destructive cyber attacks, or spreading coordinated disinformation.
“We’ve had a long-standing policy to send users warnings if we detect that they are the subject of state-sponsored phishing attempts, and have posted periodically about these before,” Google said. (AGENCIES)
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