Security News

Office 365 and Azure Active Directory customers were the targets of billions of phishing emails and brute force attacks successfully blocked last year by Microsoft. "From January 2021 through December 2021, we've blocked more than 25.6 billion Azure AD brute force authentication attacks and intercepted 35.7 billion phishing emails with Microsoft Defender for Office 365," said Vasu Jakkal, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President for Security, Compliance, and Identity.

The rising adoption of multi-factor authentication for online accounts pushes phishing actors to use more sophisticated solutions to continue their malicious operations, most notably reverse-proxy tools. The increasing use of MFA has pushed phishing actors to use transparent reverse proxy solutions, and to cover this rising demand, reverse proxy phish kits are being made available.

The study, which included 82,402 participants, tested how employees from four different organizations responded to emails that simulated one of four commonly used phishing tactics. According to Matthew Connor, F-Secure Service Delivery Manager and lead author of the report, the study's most notable finding was that people working in 'technical' roles seemed equally or even more susceptible to phishing attempts than the general population.

Finland's National Cyber Security Centre warns of an ongoing phishing campaign attempting to hijack Facebook accounts by impersonating victims' friends in Facebook Messenger chats. In the alert, the NCSC-FI says that all Facebook users who received messages from online acquaintances asking for their phone numbers and a verification number delivered via SMS are the targets of this ongoing scam.

The tech giant said the attacks manifested through accounts that were not secured using multi-factor authentication, thereby making it possible for the adversary to take advantage of the target's bring-your-own-device policy and introduce their own rogue devices using the pilfered credentials. "Stolen credentials were then leveraged in the second phase, in which attackers used compromised accounts to expand their foothold within the organization via lateral phishing as well as beyond the network via outbound spam."

Microsoft's threat analysts have uncovered a large-scale, multi-phase phishing campaign that uses stolen credentials to register devices onto the target's network and use them to distribute phishing emails. "The inbox rule allowed the attackers to avoid arousing the compromised users' suspicions by deleting non-delivery reports and IT notification emails that might have been sent to the compromised user."

Scammers are taking advantage of the focus on COVID-19 testing and the need for at-home test kits, says Barracuda Networks. A recent blog post from security firm Barracuda Networks looks at the rise in phishing campaigns that exploit the concerns over such testing.

Google is rolling out new warning banners in Google Drive to alert users of potentially suspicious files that threat actors could use for malware delivery and in phishing attacks. "If a user opens a potentially suspicious or dangerous file in Google Drive, we will display a warning banner to help protect them and their organization from malware, phishing, and ransomware," Google explains.

A new phishing campaign using fake shipping delivery lures installs the STRRAT remote access trojan on unsuspecting victim's devices. Fortinet discovered the new campaign after spotting phishing emails impersonating Maersk Shipping, a giant in the global shipping industry, and using seemingly legitimate email addresses.

The WordPress WP HTML Mail plugin, installed in over 20,000 sites, is vulnerable to a high-severity flaw that can lead to code injection and the distribution of convincing phishing emails. 'WP HTML Mail' is a plugin used for designing custom emails, contact form notifications, and generally tailored messages that online platforms send to their audience.