Security News > 2021 > February > Phishing campaign lures US businesses with fake PPP loans
Threat actors are sending phishing emails impersonating a Small Business Administration lender to prey on US business owners who want to apply for a Paycheck Protection Program loan to keep their business going during the COVID-19 crisis.
The attackers behind this phishing campaign are taking advantage of the ongoing financial problems some businesses are experiencing due to the pandemic to lure them into handing over sensitive business and personal info.
In the phishing messages, they are posing as the president of World Trade Finance, a delegated SBA lender that finances small businesses with government-backed loans up to $5,000,000.
A similar phishing campaign has targeted the hundreds of thousands of small businesses that applied for Payroll Protection Program SBA loans in April 2020.
All entered credentials were stolen by the attackers to later be used in Business Email Compromise scams, network compromise, or in further phishing attacks.
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency also alerted businesses of phishing campaigns attempting to harvest logins for Small Business Administration COVID-19 loan relief accounts.