Is It Time to Rethink Your Phishing Awareness Program?
September 6, 2019 by Zach Lewis in Internet Security AwarenessPart 1 of 2 As seen in Cofense’sTM 2019 Phishing Threat & Malware Review, threat actors innovate relentlessly. Technologies like secure email gateways (SEGs) can’t keep up. In fact, the vast majority of phishing emails verified by the Cofense Phishing Defense CenterTM are found in environments using SEGs. With so many malicious emails making it past security controls, the human factor becomes decisive. This means your phishing awareness program needs to stay in fighting trim. In particular, it’s important to educate users on attacks that breach your perimeter, working with your SOC to focus on the most frequent threats. If...
Phishing Emails Are Using SharePoint to Slip Past Symantec’s Gateway and Attack Banks
September 3, 2019 by Milo Salvia in Cyber Incident ResponseHiding in plain sight by using trusted enterprise technologies almost guarantees delivery of a phishing URL. Case in point: a phishing campaign that delivered a legitimate Sharepoint URL to bypass the email gateway, in this case Symantec’s. Here’s how this increasingly popular phishing tactic works. Email Body The phishing email is sent from a compromised account at a third-party vendor asking the recipient to review a proposal document. The recipient is urged to click on an embedded URL. As seen below in figure 1, the URL has been wrapped by Symantec’s Click-time URL Protection and redirects the recipient to a...
Trickbot Is Using Google Docs to Trick Proofpoint’s Gateway
August 29, 2019 by Cofense in Phishing Defense CenterBy Tej Tulachan The Cofense Phishing Defense Center (PDC) has detected a phishing campaign that delivers Trickbot embedded in a Google Docs link. Trickbot has been making the rounds for a long time now and is still considered one of the biggest malware threats targeting business today. Threat actors frequently utilize legitimate applications or trusted file sharing sites like Google Docs to bypass the email gateway and lure users to click on the link to deliver malware. In this case, the email made it through Proofpoint’s gateway utilized by our PDC customer. Email Body The email attempts to lure curious...
Advanced Phishing Campaign Delivers Quasar RAT
August 26, 2019 by Max Gannon in Threat IntelligenceCofense IntelligenceTM has uncovered an advanced campaign that uses multiple anti-analysis methods to deliver Quasar Remote Access Tool (RAT). A phishing email poses as a job seeker and uses the unsophisticated ploy of an attached resume to deliver the malware. Quasar RAT is freely available as an open-source tool on public repositories and provides a number of capabilities. Organizations find a higher degree of difficulty with the ‘.doc’ file attachment distributing Quasar RAT itself, because the document employs a multitude of measures to deter detection. Such methods include password protection—which is a built-in feature of Microsoft Word—and encoded macros. Along...
Why Join Us at Cofense Submerge? Here’s What Attendees Say
August 20, 2019 by Tonia Dudley in Internet Security AwarenessNext month in Orlando we’ll be hosting CofenseTM Submerge 2019, our fourth annual user conference and phishing defense summit. As we wrap up each event, we ask attendees for feedback. What did they like best? Networking and hearing other customers’ experiences are always the top responses. As a former customer who now works at Cofense, I totally agree. Here are some of the answers we heard last year when we asked, “Why attend Submerge?” “Sharing ideas was tremendously helpful to me—having the opportunity to meet other people from a variety of industries doing the same thing that I do.” We’re all on this journey...
New Phishing Campaign Bypasses Microsoft ATP to Deliver Adwind to Utilities Industry
August 19, 2019 by Milo Salvia in PhishingThreat IntelligenceThe CofenseTM Phishing Defense CenterTM has observed a new phishing campaign that spoofs a PDF attachment to deliver the notorious Adwind malware. This campaign was found explicitly in national grid utilities infrastructure. Adwind, aka JRAT or SockRat, is sold as a malware-as-a-service where users can purchase access to the software for a small subscription-based fee. The malware boasts the following features: Takes screen shots Harvests credentials from Chrome, IE and Edge Accesses the webcam, record video and take photos Records audio from the microphone Transfers files Collects general system and user information Steals VPN certificates Serves as a Key Logger Email Body Fig1. Email Body...
Remote Access Trojan Uses Sendgrid to Slip through Proofpoint
August 14, 2019 by Marcel Feller in Phishing Defense CenterThe CofenseTM Phishing Defense CenterTM observed a malware campaign masquerading as an email complaint from the Better Business Bureau to deliver the notorious Orcus RAT, part of the free DNS domain ChickenKiller which we blogged about in 2015. Here’s how it works:
Phishing Campaigns Imitating CEOs Bypass Microsoft Gateway to Target Energy Sector
August 13, 2019 by Aaron Riley in Cyber Incident ResponsePhishingCofense Intelligence™ has identified a highly customized credential phishing campaign using Google Drive to target a company within the energy sector. This phishing campaign is crafted to look like the CEO of the targeted company has shared an important message with the recipient via Google Drive. The email is legitimately sent by Google Drive to employees and appears to be shared on behalf of the CEO by an email address that does not fit the email naming convention of the targeted company. By using an authentic service, this phishing campaign was able to bypass the email security stack, in particular...
TrickBot Adds ‘Cookie Grabber’ Information Stealing Module
August 8, 2019 by Aaron Riley in PhishingThreat IntelligenceCofense Intelligence™ has identified a new credential information stealing module for the TrickBot banking trojan being used to gather web browser cookie data. Previous versions of TrickBot allowed for minimal web browser data theft; however, this ability was within the main functionality of the trojan platform and not a stand-alone module as it is now. This new module, dubbed ‘Cookie Grabber,’ has an added feature that allows for further control and manipulation of the victim’s host. TrickBot is a modular banking trojan that targets financial information within an infected host. The threat actors behind TrickBot are always re-tooling and adapting...
This Phish Uses DocuSign to Slip Past Symantec Gateway and Target Email Credentials
August 7, 2019 by Cofense in PhishingBy Tej Tulachan The Cofense Phishing Defense CenterTM has observed a new wave of phishing attacks masquerading as an email from DocuSign to target the credentials of all major email providers. DocuSign is an electronic signature technology that facilitates exchanges of contracts, tax documents, and legal materials. Threat actors utilize this legitimate application to bypass the email gateway and entice users into handing out their credentials. Here’s how it works. Email Body At first glance, the email body looks well-presented with the correct DocuSign logo and its content. However, there is something suspicious within the first line of the message—the...