If you think the Russians are only targeting U.S. companies and the defense industry, think again. The cyber war between Russia and the U.S. has escalated since the President threw down the gauntlet on Putin, and the retaliation is to attack Gmail users in the U.S. Yes, Gmail users are part of the war.

According to Google’s research, last month, Russian hackers (APT28 or “Fancy Bear”) targeted around 14,000 Gmail users, which it claimed to be an above-average number of attacks in one month. Although 14,000 Gmail users is relatively small, it shows that hackers are sneaky and trying different techniques to gather information, disrupt users, and hop from one target to the next.

According to the alert from Google, “we detected government-backed attackers trying to steal your password…if they are successful at some point they could access your data or take other actions using your account.”

Google recommends that all users keep Microsoft Word up to data and open Microsoft Word documents with Google docs.

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