Google Meet is the new spam hotspot. This setting stops the random calls | usagoldmines.com

Spam and scams generally go hand-in-hand. Accordingly, we all get flooded daily from various angles across multiple email and messaging services, but they’re not the only ways of getting hit. As annoying as they are, scammers are a smart bunch. Which is why my guard is now up after being contacted through an unexpected medium for spammers—Google Meet.

A while back, bad actors would tag random users in shared Google documents via @-mentions to try to get people to click on bad links. This eventually died out when Google took action and made it harder to tag random users. Now it appears something similar may be happening over Google Meet. Recently, I received a random call on my phone from a person I didn’t recognize, and at an extremely early hour for the West Coast.

A decade ago, I might have assumed a wrong number. But now with so many data leaks and breaches (and those details being exposed and sold repeatedly on the dark web), my guess is that this was a cold call—likely an attempt to sell me on fraudulent services or claim an urgent situation with my finances. I imagine if I had a phone number linked to my Google Meet account, I might have already gotten even more unexpected calls.

PCWorld

Fortunately, it’s easy to nope right out of these scam attempts. Just open up Google Meet’s settings in a web browser or on your phone, then head to General and find the toggle for Only Contacts Can Call Me. Flip it on to block random people from calling you. Only your contacts and people you’ve already interacted with through other Google services (for example, via email) will be able to ring you.

My other recommendation is that while you’re in those general settings, disable Send more diagnostic info and (if you’re in the phone app) turn on Use additional encryption. Even if you rarely use Meet, there’s no need to let Google collect information about your use patterns—and your privacy and security will be better protected if you use end-to-end encryption for calls.