Google sent roughly 50,000 alerts of state-sponsored phishing or hacking attempts to customers during 2021, a considerable increase compared to the previous year. The company has been warning Google users of such attacks since 2012, an alert system redesigned in 2017 and revamped with added info on the potential attack vector. The most notable campaigns targeting Google users were coordinated by the Russian-backed APT28 (aka Fancy Bear) and APT35 (aka Charming Kitten), an Iranian threat actor active since at least 2014.”]