By: Isa Didio ’18

On May 3, many Staples students received an email with a link to a Google Document sent by a current or past Westport Public School staff member. These emails that students received are part of a larger phishing scam that attacked Gmail users worldwide.

According to USA Today, the email, sent from a name familiar to the user, invited users to edit a fake document that asked permission to access users accounts. If clicked on, hackers can access user email accounts and credentials.

An email from the Staples technology department was sent out to students shortly after the attack detailing how to identify the scam and what to do if the link in the scam email was  clicked.  It identifies the real sender address of the phishing email as [email protected]. The email also advised students to reset their password using the Student and Staff Password Change Tool on Google.

Google said they were able to stop the scam within an hour, according to CNBC, and that it disabled the accounts of the people that were affected, which was only 0.1 percent.

Many Staples students were skeptical when they received the email. Isabel Offir was one of those students

“I was a little confused when I got the email, but I was glad the school sent out an email to warn us of the hack,” Offir said.

Google advises users to be skeptical when receiving an unwarranted email from someone they know in the future.