In this article Activity overview Attack chain overview Portable runtime staging and execution variants Host discovery and AD CS assessment Case 1: ESC1 abuse and the cost of an identity exclusion Case 2: PetitPotam and ESC8 turn a workstation into a domain-controller identity Why the response outcomes differed Actionable investigation methods References Learn More Microsoft Threat Intelligence investigated two human-operated intrusions in which threat actors used Microsoft Teams messages and…
In this article Stages of AI adoption by North Korean threat actors AI use across North Korean threat operations AI-assisted targeting and reconnaissance AI-assisted social engineering and identity deception AI-assisted software and tooling development AI-assisted operational scaling and analysis Mitigation and protection guidance Microsoft Defender detections As Microsoft Threat Intelligence continues to track how threat actors operationalize AI to increase the speed, efficiency, and…
Phishing remained the leading initial access technique, appearing in slightly over one-third of all Cisco Talos Incident Response (Talos IR) engagements — a decrease from over 50 percent last quarter. In addition to traditional phishing links and attachments, we observed numerous threat actors conducting voice phishing (vishing) in tandem with IT desk impersonation to socially engineer the victim into allowing remote access via a legitimate remote monitoring and management (RMM) tool.…
Group-IB uncovers MadApe, a previously undocumented Microsoft Device Code phishing kit that uses business-themed PDF lures, configurable redirects and fake document-sharing pages to trick victims into completing Microsoft Device Code authentication across a broad infrastructure cluster.
Introduction On Wednesday, 2026-10-28, I ran across a ClickFix campaign I haven't seen before. Like several other ClickFix campaigns, this one uses a fake Cloudflare verification page. It targets both macOS and Windows. I don't yet have a name for this specific activity, but this diary shares some screenshots and indicators. Unfortunately, I was unable to get the macOS or Windows malware distributed through this particular ClickFix campaign. Screenshots of the Activity Shown above: Fake…
This technical analysis details a sophisticated Android malware campaign targeting the Indian banking sector. The report examines seven distinct trojan families that facilitate banking fraud through coordinated phishing, credential theft, and unauthorized cryptojacking. Group-IB provides an in-depth breakdown of the attack chain, malware capabilities, and the infrastructure used to compromise mobile devices.
Attackers can steal credentials and begin exfiltrating data within minutes, often before security teams can respond. Exaforce examines real-world attacks involving stolen GitHub tokens, malicious AI installers, and MFA phishing, explaining why faster detection and automated containment are critical. [...]
ClickFix attacks are surging as cybercriminals use fake AI installers, malicious search results, and trusted chatbot platforms to trick users into executing malware. Push Security examines how these attacks evade traditional defenses and why AI tools have become increasingly effective lures. [...]
A Google search for Amazon business led to a ClickFix lure that dropped multiple malicious payloads onto the victim machine, including versions of Lumma Stealer and NetSupport Client RMM.
Legitimate infrastructure has become a powerful delivery mechanism for attackers, carrying the inherent trust they once had to build. As Cisco Talos explored in our previous research on weaponizing software-as-a-service (SaaS) notification pipelines, these platforms are increasingly repurposed as proxies for malicious intent. Talos has since tracked a significant acceleration in this trend, observing abuse across more than 25 distinct legitimate platforms in the past year. The abused…
In January, we responded to the Lazarus Group’s novel attack campaign against South Korea, which followed last year’s Operation SyncHole. In this new operation, the group employed an updated malware chain that included both their old and new malware, which we disclosed in full, and used another mandatory South Korean security software program as a part of infection chain using a watering‑hole strategy. Notably, the group targeted victims more selectively, sending spear‑phishing emails with…
Wiz identified threat actors hijacking Google Cloud Platform (GCP) billing accounts via search-ad phishing to fund unauthorized Gemini API usage. By stealing corporate credentials and MFA tokens, attackers gain access, dismantle IAM domain restrictions, and link external GCP p...
Unit 42 details the top initial access vectors adversaries use to breach organizations, led by edge exploits, credential abuse and phishing The post Top 5 Initial Access Threat Vectors Observed by Unit 42 in September 2026 appeared first on Unit 42.
In this article Uncovering the shadow world of a phishing kit ecosystem Storm-3119: YAM Store, the power broker Storm-2990: The Iron Man System phishing kit Downstream activity from Storm-2990 phishing kits Mitigation and protection guidance Microsoft Defender detections Over the past year, Microsoft uncovered a Chinese-language cybercriminal ecosystem, an interconnected network of phishing kit operators, developers, and an illicit marketplace selling tools and infrastructure for large-scale…
We found a wave of websites posing as Calendly booking pages for job interviews at Meta. Visitors pick a slot for a 30-minute phone call with a recruiter, fill in their details, and pass what looks like a CAPTCHA. Then the page asks them to log in to Facebook. The interview is fake. The pages are designed to steal the visitor’s Facebook login details, including the two-factor authentication (2FA) codes meant to protect the account. Visitors are then asked to sign in to their Google account too,…
The National Cyber and Information Security Agency (NÚKIB) is warning about targeted phishing campaigns aimed at users of the Signal messaging app. These activities are primarily linked to actors connected to the Russian Federation, and their goal is to gain access to victims’ communications by exploiting human error. Given the popularity of the Signal app among high-profile individuals and the occurrence of cyber incidents associated with it in the Czech Republic, NÚKIB is publishing an…
Doris searched for ChatGPT and ended up in a BEC scam. See how ClickFix, a stolen session cookie, and a hidden inbox rule chain into an OH $#!T moment.
You ignored the suspicious email. You didn’t open the attachment, click the link, or reply to the sender. Then you asked your AI assistant to summarize your inbox. Could the message you wisely avoided find its way back onto your to-do list—only this time presented as an urgent recommendation from a tool you trust? That’s the risk behind phishing emails containing hidden instructions aimed at AI assistants. Instead of relying only on persuading you, attackers are also trying to influence the…
Cisco Talos identified an advanced persistent threat (APT) spear-phishing campaign against individuals affiliated with Taiwan research organizations. The operation leveraged legitimate public event themes and impersonated reputable academic and policy institutions to establish credibility. The phishing emails exhibited highly consistent structure, rhetoric, and personalization patterns, suggesting the threat actor likely used AI-assisted content generation to rapidly customize invitation lures…
In August, the Malwarebytes research team reported on a new malicious turnkey kit that makes it possible for almost anyone to launch a sophisticated online scam. The kit was not simply a fake website. It bundled the command center, victim tracking, and administrative tools into a ready-to-use package, reducing the technical knowledge needed to operate a scam. The discovery highlights an important feature of the cybercrime economy: criminals don’t necessarily need to build their own…
Najviše je zabilježeno phishing napada, neželjenih poruka i financijski motiviranih prijevara, a listopad donosi kampanju za građane te nacionalna i europska natjecanja iz kibernetičke sigurnosti Tijekom Europskog mjeseca kibernetičke sigurnosti, koji se svake godine obilježava u listopadu, CARNET-ov Nacionalni CERT provodi niz aktivnosti usmjerenih na podizanje razine svijesti javnosti o važnosti kibernetičke sigurnosti. Riječ je o dijelu aktivnosti koje Nacionalni CERT kontinuirano provodi…
Facebook users are reporting receiving a message with a fake Facebook Marketplace listing that has their name as the seller. It works like this. You receive a message (in this case iMessage) asking “Is this still available for purchase?” Attached to the message is a fabricated Facebook Marketplace listing. Tapping on the picture, you might notice that the seller’s name is the same as your name. This is known as a conversation lure, adding legitimacy to a message and giving you an additional…
Analysis of Blinder Tunnel, an Iran-nexus campaign using fake Dubai Airports recruitment lures and GitHub C2 malware to target critical infrastructure. The post Blinder Tunnel Campaign Targets Iraqi Infrastructure appeared first on Unit 42.
It seems that a trend started… I continue my journey discovering more RMM ("Remote Management & Monitoring") tools abused by threat actors! A few days ago, I wrote a diary[1] about ScreenConnect used in the wild. Today, I found another one. Same scenario, it started with a phishing email that delivers a fake PDF invoice to the victim: When the PDF is opened, it just redirect to a malicious VBS file. Indeed, the PDF contains an “OpenAction” and “URI” keywords, that sounds weird! remnux@remnux:~…
We found 70 websites that impersonate legitimate crypto projects that invite visitors to vote on the date of an upcoming rewards distribution. The pages copy the look of the real sites closely, and on most of them the offer is small and believable: Cast a vote, and as an active voter you get a 1.25x boost when the rewards are paid out. However, the vote is fake and clicking the Vote now button opens a wallet connection prompt. It’s the first step toward requests that could trick visitors into…
Milk Dragon, also known as NaiLong is an Adversary-in-the-Middle (AiTM) phishing kit active since October 2025. Unlike conventional phishing tactics that rely on fear and urgency, Milk Dragon lures victims with big discounts on consumer goods distributed via Facebook and TikTok marketplace advertisements.
Milk Dragon, also known as NaiLong is an Adversary-in-the-Middle (AiTM) phishing kit active since October 2025. Unlike conventional phishing tactics that rely on fear and urgency, Milk Dragon lures victims with big discounts on consumer goods distributed via Facebook and TikTok marketplace advertisements.
Free Mobile, one of France’s main cellular providers, was fined €27 million by France’s data protection regulator, the CNIL, in January over failures to protect customer data. The October 2024 breach allowed an unauthorized party to access sensitive customer records, including bank account details and login information. Since the breach, we’ve seen many poorly written scam campaigns targeting Free Mobile customers. However, over the past few weeks, a well-written scam has appeared, closely…
Free Mobile, one of France’s main cellular providers, was fined €27 million by France’s data protection regulator, the CNIL, in January over failures to protect customer data. The October 2024 breach allowed an unauthorized party to access sensitive customer records, including bank account details and login information. Since the breach, we’ve seen many poorly written scam campaigns targeting Free Mobile customers. However, over the past few weeks, a well-written scam has appeared, closely…
Threat Actors do not always use top-notch techniques or very complex malware to perform their attacks. Sometimes, they just abuse of existing applications... I received a very simple phishing email: From: contact@mejuri[.]com To: <redacted> Subject: EFT Wire Transfer Paid Invoice Receipt Dear Customer, Payment of $5745.65 was Received. Please click here to view your Order Information in PDF If this charge wasn't authorized by you, contact our customer service to cancel and receive an immediate…
Cisco Talos uncovered a cluster of activity we track as UAT-11587 targeting government and policy organizations across Asia, including in Taiwan, India, the Philippines, and Cambodia, to deliver a previously undocumented backdoor referred to as “Antino” in developer artifacts. Talos first observed UAT-11587 activity in September 2025. By July 2026, Talos had identified at least 16 affected or targeted institutional environments across eight Asian countries. Antino is a Rust-compiled Windows…
У вересні 2026 року фахівцями CERT-UA виявлено майже 50 скомпрометованих вебсайтів, до сторінок яких зловмисниками додано шкідливий JavaScript-код. Під час відвідування такого сайту користувачеві демонструвалася підроблена сторінка перевірки Cloudflare, яка під приводом підтвердження того, що відвідувач є людиною, пропонувала виконати команду. Виконання команди призводило до завантаження та встановлення MSI-пакета з віддаленого сервера (техніка ClickFix).
In this article Attack chain overviewMitigation and protection guidanceLearn More In July 2026, Microsoft Defender Experts observed phishing campaigns targeting organizations across multiple industries that distributed a masqueraded MSP360 Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) installer through meeting invitations, PDF-themed lures, software update prompts, and other social-engineering content. Once executed, the legitimate MSP360 installer, distributed under a deceptive file name established…
In this article Star Blizzard TTPs observed in 2026Defending against Star Blizzard and RedFlick-related activityMicrosoft Defender detectionsHunting queriesIndicators of compromise Since January 2026, Microsoft has observed Russian state threat actor Star Blizzard evolve their detection evasion capabilities through large-scale phishing campaigns, the use of accounts on compromised websites, and a novel malware delivery technique that Microsoft tracks as “RedFlick”. These changes represent a…
Huntress researchers reveal how attackers are exploiting ChatGPT Custom GPTs to spread ClickFix lures and DLL-sideloaded malware. See the full breakdown.
A domain that has long appeared in software documentation, code examples, and developer test material is now being used to push a ClickFix attack against Windows users. A placeholder domain stands in for a website in an example. The best-known is probably example.com. Another, third-party[.]com, has often been used in documentation to represent an external website, API, or service. However, there is a very important difference between the two: example.com is reserved for documentation, while…
Introduction My previous post on Macfinger ClickFix was two days ago, and this campaign remains active. The more I look into the malware delivered by this campaign, the more I believe it is not a variant of Atomic macOS (AMOS) Stealer as originally reported. There are too many differences between what I've documented with recent AMOS Stealer activity and what I'm now seeing with this malware. The data collection and method of exfiltration is different between these two malware families. The…
Business Email Compromise (BEC) operates on a familiar playbook. Threat actors breach a mailbox, silently monitor operations, map approval chains, and ultimately exploit that access to divert funds or exfiltrate sensitive assets.This dynamic is central to our analysis as we kick off a series around Rapid7's collaborative research with Zimbra; upcoming installments will explore technical details and broader findings based within the Zimbra Collaboration Suite. Our investigation disrupted the…
Yesterday, we received a phishing email with an interesting link. At first sight, it looks like garbage, but every piece of it has been carefully crafted to confuse basic security controls. Here is the defanged link: hxxps://YKZjqa7A@gynd--[.]koncar-hr[.]com/handlers@isc.sans.edu Let's break it down... The first trick is the old "userinfo" field. According to RFC 3986[1], everything between the scheme and an "@" inside the authority is treated as credentials ("user:password@host"). Browsers…
Phishing follows whatever people want at the moment, and right now that includes AI subscriptions they don’t have to pay for. We recently uncovered a new variation on this theme: A fake Claude Max giveaway that uses a convincing Google sign-in window to steal login information.Claude’s paid plans start at $20 a month and cost considerably more for higher usage limits, while free accounts have stricter limits. That makes the promise of a free upgrade an attractive lure.Microsoft reported in June…
The Huntress SOC uncovered phishing attacks that trick employees into installing rogue RMM tools like ScreenConnect for persistent access. Learn how to spot it.
Introduction I've found several legitimate websites with injected script for a campaign using the ClickFix social engineering technique. This particular ClickFix campaign was documented earlier this month on the Ransom-ISAC Blog, but it doesn't appear to have a nickname yet. Since this campaign is targeting macOS environments through a fingerprinting process, I'm calling it the "Macfinger ClickFix" campaign. No, this is not related to the MacFinger utility from decades ago. Instead, think of…
In this article What is device code phishing?EvilTokens platform and operationsEvilTokens phishing emailsMitigation and protection guidanceMicrosoft Defender XDR detectionsHunting queries Following its emergence in February 2026, EvilTokens quickly became one of the most widely used phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) platforms, providing cybercriminals with AI capabilities for tailoring phishing lures and analyzing compromised inboxes to identify high-value targets. This AI-powered cybercrime…
On September 9, 2026, Volexity published a blog post detailing the simultaneous use of multiple chained zero-day exploits in Google Chrome (CVE-2026-85046, CVE-2026-87491) and Microsoft Windows (CVE-2026-85880) by two different Chinese advanced persistent threat (APT) actors. Shortly after that blog post was published, Volexity discovered additional campaigns—this time from a third Chinese threat actor, tracked by Volexity under the alias UTA0565—that used the same chained exploits on September…
Executive Summary Following disclosure of the TraderTraitor attack against LayerZero in April 2026, SentinelOne identified an additional victim with the same macOS backdoors. Our analysis explores the mechanics of these backdoors and the expanded targeting against a victim in the IT services sector with no relationship to cryptocurrency trading. We also identified more weaponized GitHub repositories from the social engineering schemes used to target job seekers in these campaigns. This report…
Parcel delivery phishing campaigns appear around the world under different courier names. In the United States, the messages commonly impersonate USPS and claim that a package has an invalid address or could not be delivered. Similar messages impersonate Colissimo and Chronopost in France, Correos in Spain, Poste Italiane in Italy, and PostNL in the Netherlands. The details vary, but the aim is usually the same: to persuade you to visit a fake courier website and provide personal and financial…
AI has already made fundamental changes to the operating environment for cybersecurity. Cyberattackers are testing more paths, adapting their techniques, and moving across digital environments with greater speed and persistence. The weaknesses they exploit remain familiar: excessive permissions, unprotected authentication flows, unpatched systems, exposed execution paths, and gaps between controls. What has changed is how quickly these weaknesses can combine into attack paths that cross…
At the end of August, a malspam message was caught in the quarantine of a mail gateway operated by one of my customers. The message was not especially remarkable – it asked the recipient to review some attached requirements and provide a price quotation for a fiber optic system and appeared to impersonate an employee of a legitimate company. The receiving gateway quarantined the message because it detected malicious content in the attachment, though even if it didn’t, the e-mail would not have…
Since early May 2026, we’ve been monitoring a large phishing campaign based on T-Mobile rewards points. The messages falsely warn that a customer’s rewards points are about to expire. They aren’t legitimate account notices: They use urgency, invented point balances, and phishing links to push recipients into acting before they can verify the claim. A typical message says that a T-Mobile Rewards account holds 18,400 points, gives an imminent expiry date, and states that unused points will be…
Antivirus renewal scams often begin with a message claiming that your subscription has automatically renewed. When you follow the instructions to cancel it, you are taken to a fake page designed to collect your contact details. The renewal charge never existed. Receiving a message that names the antivirus software you use does not necessarily mean the sender has access to your device or account. Scammers impersonate popular brands and send the same message to large numbers of people, knowing…
Bitrefill is a legitimate company that sells gift cards for popular stores like Amazon, Deliveroo, Apple, Nintendo, and thousands of others. They also sell eSIMs, and mobile top-ups. You can pay on their website for all of these with cryptocurrency. The scam is designed to catch people searching for Bitrefill or something it sells, like a gift card. Victims see a search result that appears to lead to Bitrefill but actually points to a lookalike domain. The fake site then takes them through what…
A deep technical analysis of the Smishing Triad’s JWR phishing kit and Outsider operator cluster, revealing its real-time victim control, encrypted WebSocket communications, multi-stage credential theft, AES-256-CTR implementation, infrastructure, and actionable indicators for defenders.
Researchers analyzed a flood of fraudulent business emails and found that the threat actors had doubled-up on tactics to make them appear legitimate, including help from AI.