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Have you received an email about a new comment on a Google Docs or other Google Workspace file that you don’t recognize? Please do not click on the included link as you are probably part of a new source of spam abuse emails in Google Docs, Sheets and Slides.
When working on a document in Google Docs, Slides, or any other Google Workspace app, you can add comments to suggest changes or just act as footnotes. In these comments, you can also use @ followed by an email address to tag someone who you think needs to see that particular comment or part of the Google Doc.
It seems that sometime this year, the first report we could find is from August, spammers realized they could use Google Docs / Slides / etc comments. to send any message to almost any email address, and that the emails will come from a trusted sender, Google. Judging from various reports this month [1, 2, 3], and the fact that several members of the 9to5Google computer received similar spam messages in recent days, it seems that the efforts of spammers may be increasing.
If you have received one of these emails, the most important thing is that don’t click in the attached link, as it redirects to a malicious destination that will likely try to steal your account information. Otherwise, just delete and ignore the email.
If these emails become persistent, there is an easy way to filter these spam comments without affecting most of the incoming emails related to Google Docs and other Workspace apps, posted by Shulin Ye on the Gmail help forum. Since spammers are not giving tagged email addresses proper access to leave their own comments, every spam email contains the phrase “you have no commenting rights.”
This latest attack is quite similar to a long-standing problem with Google Drive that allows anyone to share malicious or unwanted files on any Google account. At the beginning of last year, Google said they were “making it a priority” to find a solution to that problem.
Update 10/28: Google has shared with 9to5Google that they are “implementing additional measures” specifically to prevent this type of spam from being posted in comments in Docs, Presentations, and other Google Workspace files. These new preventions are just part of Google’s ongoing efforts to detect and shut down new spam campaigns.
How to remove Google Docs comment spam messages from your Gmail inbox:
- Open Gmail in a desktop or laptop web browser.
- Click the down arrow in the search box.
- In the box titled “You have the words,” enter the phrase “you have no comment rights.
Be sure to include the quotes!
- Click “Create Filter”, then choose what you want to happen to the email.
We choose “Mark as read” and “Skip the inbox” so that we can find the legitimate emails later, if necessary. However, you may prefer to choose “Delete”.
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