Fraudulent emails, such as phishing emails (which impersonate companies or entities so that you click on their links), are a serious problem and, above all, if our email has been leaked due to a data breach somewhere. platform, we may receive emails of this type from time to time.
Spam, in general, is stronger than ever throughout the Internet, from social networks to forums or email, and therefore it is important that we make use of the tools that the browsers and services we use put at our disposal to minimize the risk. Google is not far behind and has been adding new functions to its browser, Chrome, with the intention of establishing protection barriers between the user and websites that can be classified as suspicious or insecure.
Since Gmail is one of the most used email services in the world, we should not miss making use of a feature that will protect your environment in Gmail so that a click on a fraudulent link does not take you directly to the page of the scammers. This is the “Enhanced Safe Browsing” feature, which you can check whether you have activated or not from the Setting up your account from Google.
If you use Google Chrome, you can also check these settings by typing in your address bar: chrome://settings/security. In the menu that appears, choose the option ‘Enhanced protection’ instead of ‘Standard Protection’.
This tool “works automatically in the background to offer faster and more proactive protection against downloads, extensions and dangerous websites,” they explain from Google. “If you decide to activate Enhanced Safe Browsing for your account, the feature will protect you when you are logged in and improve your security in Google Chrome and Gmail,” the website states.
We are therefore talking about a tool that also applies to Chrome. In fact, if you already use this browser, you probably know it or have it activated.
However, if you use another browser or use the Gmail application on your Android mobile or iPhone, this function also applies, providing an extra layer of security that can notify you when a link in an email is suspected of leading to phishing pages. identity, bank theft, etc., or lead to a direct download to your device. It also applies to the Google Chat app.
Extra layer of security
It is advisable to have this setting activated so that Google can warn us before entering the lion’s den in case we have not been able to identify an email as phishing by ourselves (something we should be able to do while always being aware).
What Google needs in exchange for being able to provide us with this barrier is to obtain certain information about our account or our device. Specifically, by activating this option you give Google the right to read URLs, downloads, browser extensions, system information, a small sample of pages. Normally, unless we are extremely suspicious of our privacy, it will be worth it, since they also keep this information associated with your account only temporarily, as they indicate.
