Think you can spot a phish? Take Google's fun new quiz to find out

Phishing scams are a real problem, and the number of phishing emails sent each year has been on the rise recently. To help prevent the success of phishing scammers, Google now has a quick, fun quiz anyone can take to test their skills at detecting when an email is…well…fishy.

If you want to jump right to the quiz, click the blue button below. If you want to learn more (and get some tips on how to pass with flying colors), read on before clicking over!

Phishing scams are when a scammer sends you a message — usually an email — that looks legitimate. However, links within the email take you to a false destination, usually a page that requests you to enter sensitive information like credit card numbers, passwords, etc. The scammers use this page to harvest your inputted data and then use that data to fraudulently pretend to be you.

With that in mind, this Google phishing quiz is very simple: Google presents you with email messages which are either legitimate or a phishing scam. Using the information in the example emails, you choose whether it’s real or fake. After you choose, the quiz will inform you of the correct answer and then tell you why the message is a phishing scam or not.

As you can see from the header image of this article, I got seven of the questions right, failing on just one. I consider myself to be pretty good at phishing detection, and I must admit that this Google quiz was pretty tough.

The most efficient way to pass the quiz is to use your mouse to hover over any links in the message (long-press with your finger if you’re on mobile). Look to see if the link is secure (if it features “https” it’s secure) and also check to see if the link goes where you think it’s going to go. Pay close attention to URLs that look legit at first but are easy to spot as a fake if you read the whole thing.

Above all, don’t be discouraged if you get a low score: in fact, that’s what Google wants. The whole point of the quiz is to show people how incredibly good scammers are at creating legitimate-looking emails and present you with tools on how to spot them.

Feeling ready to try your luck? Click the button below to start your quiz! Let us know in the comments how you fare: