Phishing

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darcula phishing group

Darcula can suck the blood out of any brand

Cybercrime just got easier. A new artificial intelligence off-the-shelf phishing kit named darcula now enables even inexperienced cyber criminals to impersonate any corporate brand with a complex, customizable campaign. Phishing generally refers to a form of online fraud where attackers attempt to steal sensitive information such as passwords, credit card numbers, or bank account details. “The criminals at darcula are back for more blood, and they mean business with one of the more impactful innovations in phishing in recent years. The new version of their “Phishing-as-a-Service” (PhaaS) platform, darcula-suite adds first-of-its-kind personalization capabilities …to allow criminals to build advanced phishing kits that can now target any brand with the click of a button,” says Cybersecurity company, Netcraft. 

corporate phishing threat

Copyright infringement scam goes global

Since July of this year, cybersecurity firm Check Point has been tracking an ingenious form of online fraud that is rapidly spreading across the US, Europe, East Asia and South America.  The attackers impersonate dozens of legitimate companies, claiming the victim’s organization has infringed their copyright. Weaponized emails, which appear to come from the legal representatives of the impersonated companies, accuse the recipient of misusing their brand on the target’s social media page and requesting the removal of specific images and videos. The phishing emails are typically sent from Gmail accounts and prompt recipients to download an archive file. which then installs the latest version of the Rhadamanthys infostealer stealer (version 0.7) in order to steal critical information from the victim’s organization.

russia phishing warning from microsoft

Russian secret service steps up cyber-attacks on the West

Software giant Microsoft has made an urgent public announcement that the Russian secret service is currently sending thousands of weaponized spear-phishing emails to key individuals in over 100 organizations in countries including the US and the UK. According to Microsoft: “The emails were highly targeted, using social engineering lures relating to Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS)… In some of the lures, the actor attempted to add credibility to their malicious messages by impersonating Microsoft employees.”

cyber governance

Public sector phishing attacks increase fourfold

With national elections coming up later this year, US public-sector organizations are experiencing unprecedented levels of phishing attacks designed to dupe government staff into opening weaponized links in fake emails. According to email security firm Abnormal Security: “Between May 2023 and May 2024, public sector organizations experienced an astounding 360 percent growth in phishing attacks. While phishing tends to consistently increase each year and regularly accounts for the majority of advanced threats, this level of growth is extraordinary.”

Police rounding up LabHost users

International law enforcement is hailing last week’s bust of LabHost, the world’s largest phishing-as-a-service platform, as a major victory in the war against cybercrime. In addition to multiple arrests, the Europol-co-ordinated investigation also unearthed the identities of around 10,000 users of the illegal site, many of whom are now already under police investigation. The year-long investigation, led by the UK’s London Metropolitan Police, resulted in the arrest of 37 suspects worldwide following Europol-coordinated raids across 70 addresses worldwide. Partners in the investigation also included Chainalysis, Intel 471, Microsoft, The Shadowserver Foundation, and Trend Micro.

Fake Google Docs Phishing Attacks

Beware of fake Google docs

An under-the-radar attack that creates fake Google docs is now playing havoc across multiple sectors in the US and UK, particularly in healthcare. Companies’ increasing reliance on widely-used off-the-shelf external software may save costs and create efficiencies in the short-term, but it also offers new inroads for the current generation  of increasingly devious and skilled cybercriminals Cybersecurity firm Netskope has identified a new Google Docs threat in the wild, AZORult infostealer. It is designed to steal sensitive information such as user credentials, browser information, credit card details and crypto-wallet data. A comprehensive study conducted by Netskope’s research team has uncovered a campaign where an attacker created fake Google Docs pages on Google sites from which to download malicious payloads.

United States Aerospace Hacks

US aerospace company hit by cyber-attack

An unknown threat actor has breached an as-yet-unnamed US aerospace company. According to BlackBerry, who first highlighted the attack, the threat actor’s weaponization of a phishing attack became operational around September 2022, with the offensive phase of the attack occurring almost a year later in July of this year. The cybercriminals responsible, whom BlackBerry has christened “AeroBlade,” are believed to have used the intervening nine months to develop the additional resources necessary to ensure access to the aerospace company’s systems to exfiltrate potentially highly valuable information - pointing to a high degree of professionalism and persistence on the part of the attacker.

Search Engine Phishing Risks

Beware the poisoned search

Conducting an innocent online search for any business-related document, such as a legal contract, has become as potentially risky as opening a link in an unsolicited email. Ransomware gangs, usually outside US, UK, and EU jurisdiction, are now luring business users of popular search engines to compromised websites designed to look like professional forums, creating a back door into the searcher’s entire organization.

Threat actors’ preferred names? Microsoft, Meta, and Google

Microsoft, PayPal, Facebook, Google, and Amazon are some of the world's most respected brands, but they're also the most impersonated. With 300,000 successful phishing attacks recorded last year in the US alone and 71% of organizations experiencing an attempted or actual business email compromise the issue is only getting worse.

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