Google has confirmed that its e-mail system, Gmail, has been targeted as part of an "industry-wide phishing scheme".

The search giant said that it had taken immediate action to safeguard the affected accounts, the BBC reported.

Phishing involves using fake websites to lure people into revealing data such as bank account details or login names.

BBC News reported two lists that detail more than 30 000 names and passwords that have been posted online.

"We recently became aware of an industry-wide phishing scheme through which hackers gained user credentials for web-based mail accounts including Gmail accounts. As soon as we learned of the attack, we forced password resets on the affected accounts. We will continue to force password resets on additional accounts when we become aware of them", a Google spokesperson said.

The firm stressed that the scam was "not a breach of Gmail security" but rather "a scam to get users to give away their personal information to hackers".

The phishing scam was originally thought to target just Hotmail users.

It was brought to light when 10 000 Hotmail addresses were posted online at Pastebin, a website commonly used by developers to share code.

However, a second list has since emerged containing e-mail addresses and passwords from Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, Gmail and other service providers.

Some of the accounts appear to be old, unused or fake. However, BBC News confirmed that many, including Gmail and Hotmail addresses , were genuine.

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