Phishing Emails Found in Environments Protected by Secure Email Gateways (SEGs)
Every week we update this page with a selection of the latest threats our analysts discover in environments protected by Proofpoint and other SEGs. These threat feeds can inform your security teams and help protect your business from malware-bearing phish.
One hundred percent of the phish seen by the Cofense Phishing Defense Center (PDC) have been found in environments under SEG (secure email gateway) protection, were reported by users, and were analyzed and dispositioned by Cofense Triage.
Cofense solutions enable organizations to identify, analyze and quarantine email threats in minutes.
Are phishing emails evading your Proofpoint or other secure email gateway? The following are examples of phishing emails recently seen by the PDC in technology-protected environments.
Filter by SEG
SEG
Tactic
Theme
ENVIRONMENTS: Proofpoint
TYPE: STRRAT
POSTED ON: 03/02/2021
TACTIC: embedded URLs
THEME: Finance
PHISHING EXAMPLE DESCRIPTION: Finance-themed emails found in environments protected by Proofpoint deliver a JavaScript file via an embedded URL. The JavaScript file unpacks and runs STRRAT.
ENVIRONMENTS: Proofpoint
TYPE: Smoke Loader
POSTED ON: 03/02/2021
TACTIC: downloader attachment
THEME: FInance
PHISHING EXAMPLE DESCRIPTION: Finance-themed emails found in environments protected by Proofpoint deliver JNLP shortcut files via XXE archives. The JNLP files download and run a JAR Downloader which in turn downloads Smoke Loader.
ENVIRONMENTS: Microsoft Defender for O365, Cisco Ironport, Proofpoint, and Symantec MessageLabs
TYPE: ZLoader
POSTED ON: 03/02/2021
TACTIC: embedded URLs
THEME: Finance
PHISHING EXAMPLE DESCRIPTION: Finance-themed emails found in environments protected by Microsoft ATP, Cisco Ironport, Proofpoint, and Symantec MessageLabs deliver ZLoader via Office macro laden spreadsheets. The spreadsheets are downloaded from embedded URLs.
ENVIRONMENTS: Proofpoint
TYPE: Smoke Loader
POSTED ON: 03/01/2021
TACTIC: downloader attachment
THEME: FInance
PHISHING EXAMPLE DESCRIPTION: Finance-themed emails found in environments protected by Proofpoint deliver JNLP shortcut files via XXE archives. The JNLP files download and run a JAR Downloader which in turn downloads Smoke Loader.
ENVIRONMENTS: Proofpoint
TYPE: Dridex
POSTED ON: 02/24/2021
TACTIC: Link
PHISHING EXAMPLE DESCRIPTION: Finance-themed emails found in environments protected by Proofpoint, Cisco IronPort, Microsoft Defender for O365, and Mimecast deliver password protected Office macro laden spreadsheets via embedded links. The spreadsheets download Dridex.
ENVIRONMENTS: Microsoft Defender for O365
TYPE: Credential Phishing
POSTED ON: 02/19/2021
TACTIC: Link
PHISHING EXAMPLE DESCRIPTION: Finance-themed emails found in environments protected by Microsoft Defender for O365 deliver Credential Phishing via an embedded link
Malicious emails continue to reach user inboxes, increasing the risk of account compromise, data breach, ransomware attack and more. The same patterns and techniques are used and observed week after week.
Recommendations
Cofense recommends that organizations train personnel to identify and report suspicious emails and use advanced email protection tools. Cofense PhishMe customers should use SEG Miss templates to raise awareness of these attacks. Organizations should also fortify their cyber response playbook with Cofense Triage and Cofense Vision to quickly analyze and auto quarantine the phishing attacks that bypass technical controls.
Interested in seeing more? Search our Real Phishing Threats Database.
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