How scammers use "scraped New York Times content" to trick security scanners — and exploit "free" Google Cloud links to flood your inbox

An exclamation mark inside a red warning triangle, surrounded by email symbols, superimposed on someone typing on a laptop.

• More than 12,000 servers supported a coordinated phishing infrastructure worldwide
• Google Cloud links helped phishing emails appear safer than reality
• Fake New York Times pages acted as decoys for scanners

When a suspicious email lands in your inbox promising financial rewards or urgent payment requests, the infrastructure behind that email is rarely what it appears to be.