Phishing attacks, which aim to trick you into handing over your personal information by masquerading as someone you know, are prevalent and effective. How susceptible are you to falling victim to one? A new quiz from Jigsaw, a company under Google's parent Alphabet, can help you find out.
"Identifying phishing can be harder than you think," the Jigsaw team wrote.
The quiz presents you with eight example emails, and you have to determine whether they're phishing attacks or legitimate. One example message looks like an email from Google informing you that someone has your password.
"Google stopped this sign-in attempt," the email reads. "You should change your password immediately."
The message appears legitimate, but here's the issue: Hovering over the "change password" link indicates it points to a subdomain of "ml-security.org," not Google.
"This is almost identical to an attack used to successfully hack politicians' emails," Jigsaw wrote. "Always be sure to check URLs carefully."
The quiz also warns people to be wary of messages from unknown senders, PDFs you're not expecting, and more. "Be cautious about hyperlinks and attachments you open from emails—they may direct you to fraudulent websites where you're asked to input sensitive information," Jigsaw recommends.
To take the quiz for yourself, head here.
In December, Amnesty International warned that a mysterious hacking group defeated the SMS-based two-factor authentication systems offered by Google and Yahoo to phish upwards of 1,000 people. The phishing attacks targeted journalists and activists based in the Middle East and North Africa through phony emails and login pages.
Meanwhile, that same month, word spread that a group of hackers linked to the Chinese military managed to breach both the European Union's communication network and the United Nations with the help of email-based phishing attacks.