Threat Actors Abuse Atlassian, Bypass Multiple Secure Email Gateways (SEGs)

February 24, 2023

Found in Environments Protected By: 
Microsoft, Cisco Ironport, Proofpoint, Trend Micro 

By Brandon Cook, Cofense Phishing Defense Center

Threat actors are frequently trying to explore new ways they can take advantage of trusted services and organizations by using popular file-sharing services or abusing URL redirects for familiar websites. Recently, the Cofense Phishing Defense Center (PDC) has observed a phishing campaign, under the guise of a payment remittance, taking advantage of custom URLs from Atlassian to redirect users to their phish.

Email Body

Figure 1: Email Body 

In Figure 1, the threat actor uses the ‘SharePoint’ title to add confidence to the message with an attempt to make the body of this email appear to be more legitimate. By implying that a “Payment” is in progress, the recipient is more inclined to click on malicious URLs to investigate. Upon clicking the “Review Document” button, the recipient is directed to an Atlassian page, used by many organizations to collaborate, manage projects, share, etc.

Phishing Page

Figure 2: Phishing Page 

After clicking the link, the recipient will be redirected to the page in Figure 2, hosted on Atlassian. On the landing page there are blurred documents when you hover over a “Preview Document Here” button, directing the recipient to the final page of the phish.

Phishing Page 

Figure 3: Phishing Page 

Finally, the recipient has arrived at the landing page of the phish in Figure 3 where they are prompted to verify their identity by entering Microsoft credentials. This campaign uses a mixed bag of brands that don’t normally fit together, starting with SharePoint, Confluence, and now Microsoft and Google. After all the techniques used by the threat actor, this page is hosted on a Google Translate page.

Although this campaign may have seemed convincing at first by using popular logos and financial transactions it’s using a new, but quite familiar, organization to host their initial phishing page. The Cofense Phishing Defense Center (PDC) was able to detect the malicious intent and keep our clients secure from this attack. If you would like to learn more about the PDC, reach out to us

Indicators of CompromiseIP
hxxps://remittancepaymentnotification[.]atlassian[.]net/l/cp/mTeibV2o104.192.142.18
hxxps://csb--p44y4q-netlify-app[.]translate[.]goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp142.251.163.132
hxxps://prism--thin--fear-glitch-me[.]translate[.]goog/remittanceex[.]html172.253.122.132

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