"Google-Proxy" servers & Phishing Campaigns

[Frank Barton <bartonf () HUSSON EDU>]

Hi folks (and I apologize for the cross posting),

We've run into something interesting, and I'm wondering if anybody has any
insight.

We use KnowBe4 as our Phishing/training/testing vendor, and have seen a lot
of "clicks" coming from the 66.102.8.0/24 subnet. These machines are all
identified as "Google-Proxy-<IP>.google.com"

We've reached out to KnowBe4 about this, and the response we got was
effectively, "yeah, and?" on the theory that a click is a click, no matter
where it came from. In some cases, I would believe that the users had
clicked, but in others I believe the users when they say that they didn't
click on the links.

Has anybody else seen this? Does anybody know what might be triggering
these requests to the unique URLs? does anybody have any insight into what
the google-proxy servers are used for?

Over half of the "clicks" are coming from these IP addresses. This feels
very much like the proverbial "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence,
three [or more] is enemy action", and I don't like things I can't explain.

Thank You
Frank

-- 
Frank Barton, MBA
Security+, ACMT, MCP
IT Systems Administrator
Husson University

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