By Medha Cloud Security Desk
A fresh surge of phishing attacks is exploiting publicly leaked business information to impersonate real colleagues and suppliers inside Google Workspace.
Analysts say the campaigns mark a shift in social-engineering tactics: rather than sending generic spam, attackers now weaponize authentic data drawn from recent CRM and marketing-platform breaches. (The Economic Times)
The technique blends precision and patience. Attackers mine exposed contact lists, email threads, and invoice records, then craft messages that appear to come from within the same organization. The content looks routine — a calendar update, a shared Drive link, a renewal reminder — but the embedded link routes to credential-harvesting pages disguised as Google login screens.
Because the names and details are real, standard anti-spam filters often allow the messages through. And when the sender line matches a known supplier or teammate, users rarely hesitate before authenticating. Security teams report that even seasoned staff are clicking without suspicion.
Google has acknowledged the wave and reminded administrators to enable advanced phishing and malware protection across Workspace domains. Yet experts note that the underlying problem isn’t purely technical. The trust model of business email — where familiarity equals safety — is being turned against the users themselves.
For organizations whose daily operations depend on Gmail and shared Drive collaboration, these identity-driven attacks reveal a deeper vulnerability: visibility. It is difficult to detect when a legitimate contact suddenly becomes a vector.
That reality is prompting many enterprises to reassess their collaboration environments.
Microsoft 365 integrates email security, conditional access, and behavioral analytics into a unified identity framework. Suspicious sender behavior, token anomalies, and sign-in deviations trigger automated containment long before messages reach end users.
Medha Cloud helps businesses migrate to Microsoft 365 securely, strengthening protection where people and data intersect — without disrupting productivity.
