Star Blizzard’s new spear-phishing campaign, while novel in that it uses and targets WhatsApp for the first time, exhibits familiar spear-phishing TTPs for Star Blizzard, with the threat actor initiating email contact with their targets, to engage them, before sending them a second message containing a malicious link.
The sender address used by the threat actor in this campaign impersonates a US government official, continuing Star Blizzard’s practice of impersonating known political/diplomatic figures, to further ensure target engagement. The initial email sent to targets contains a quick response (QR) code purporting to direct users to join a WhatsApp group on “the latest non-governmental initiatives aimed at supporting Ukraine NGOs.”
Read more…
Source: Microsoft
Related:
- CISA Alert (AA21-062A): Mitigate Microsoft Exchange Server Vulnerabilities
March 3, 2021
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security (CISA) partners have observed active exploitation of vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server products. Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities allows an unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable Exchange Servers, enabling the attacker to gain persistent system access, as well as access to files and mailboxes on the server and to ...
- Compromised Website Images Camouflage ObliqueRAT Malware
March 2, 2021
The ObliqueRAT malware is now cloaking its payloads as seemingly-innocent image files that are hidden on compromised websites. The remote access trojan (RAT), which has been operating since 2019, spreads via emails, which have malicious Microsoft Office documents attached. Previously, payloads were embedded into the documents themselves. Now, if users click on the attachment, they’re redirected ...
- Ryuk Ransomware: Now with Worming Self-Propagation
March 2, 2021
A new version of the Ryuk ransomware is capable of worm-like self-propagation within a local network, researchers have found. The variant first emerged in Windows-focused campaigns earlier in 2021, according to the French National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (ANSSI). The agency said that it achieves self-replication by scanning for network shares, and then ...
- Fast Flux 101: How Cybercriminals Improve the Resilience of Their Infrastructure to Evade Detection and Law Enforcement Takedowns
March 2, 2021
Fast flux is a technique used by cybercriminals to increase their infrastructure’s resilience by making law enforcement takedown of their servers and blocklisting of their IP addresses harder. It is critical for these cybercriminals to maintain their networks’ uptime to avoid losses to their revenue streams, including phishing and scam campaigns, botnet rental and illegal ...
- Emotet One Month After the Takedown
March 2, 2021
2021 got off to a fantastic start for the cybersecurity community with the news that the infamous botnet Emotet had been brought down in a coordinated global operation, “Operation Ladybird.” As the first security vendor to detect and profile the Trojan all the way back in 2014, we’re particularly delighted to be seeing the back of ...
- Working Windows and Linux Spectre exploits found on VirusTotal
March 1, 2021
Working exploits targeting Linux and Windows systems not patched against a three-year-old vulnerability dubbed Spectre were found by security researcher Julien Voisin on VirusTotal. The vulnerability was unveiled as a hardware bug in January 2018 by Google Project Zero researchers. If successfully exploited on vulnerable systems, it can be used by attackers to steal sensitive data, including ...

