Threat actors are increasingly improving their tactics to make suspicious emails look like legitimate email notifications to potential victims, deploying techniques that impersonate internally sent emails from executive team members. While this technique is not new, the adoption of AI has enabled threat actors to improve their campaign templates and construct emails tailored to their recipients. Additionally, threat actors are incorporating multiple techniques within the same email to improve the overall narrative further.
In this blog, we will discuss a recent campaign observed using third-party email delivery infrastructure to send out over a million financial fraud scam emails that displayed multiple indicators consistent with the use of generative AI during email template creation. The threat actor impersonated CEOs of multiple target companies, attempting to convince accounts payable departments of the same companies to process an Automated Clearing House (ACH) payment of nearly $50,000. To add legitimacy, the actor included a forwarded email thread (and a fabricated invoice) between the impersonated CEO and ServiceNow (which was also being impersonated).
Read more…
Source: Microsoft News
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- Adwind RAT Scurries By AV Software With New DDE Variant
September 24, 2018
A newly-discovered spam campaign is spreading the Adwind 3.0 remote-access tool (RAT) – and using a fresh take on the Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) code-injection technique for anti-virus evasion. The spam campaign features two types of droppers that leverage a new variant to the already-known DDE code-injection attack on Microsoft Excel – enabling them to bypass ...
- New Virobot malware works as ransomware, keylogger, and botnet
September 21, 2018
A newly discovered malware strain is a multi-tasking threat that besides working as ransomware and encrypting users’ files, it can also log and steal their keystrokes, and add infected computers to a spam-sending botnet. This new threat is named Virobot and appears to be under development, and comprised of multiple components that allow it to work ...
- Major Irish utility networks vulnerable to cyber attacks set to have security increased
September 19, 2018
Our water supplies, electricity and gas grids and phone networks are all vulnerable to cyber-attacks from tech-terrorists and are about to have their security beefed-up. That is because all of our utilities and essential State services are in some way or another reliant on digital technology, which in turn makes them vulnerable to digital attack. Minister Denis ...
- Cybercrime: Ransomware remains a ‘key’ malware threat says Europol
September 18, 2018
Targeted attacks replace spam campaigns, but Europol’s annual cybercrime report also warns that cryptojacking malware “may overtake ransomware as a future threat”. Ransomware remains the top malware threat to organisations, causing millions of dollars of damage and remaining a potent tool for cyber criminals and nation-state attackers. The rise of highly targeted file-locking malware campaigns and the ...
- Zero-Day Bug Allows Hackers to Access CCTV Surveillance Cameras
September 17, 2018
Firmware used in up to 800,000 CCTV cameras open to attack thanks to buffer overflow zero-day bug. Between 180,000 and 800,000 IP-based closed-circuit television cameras are vulnerable to a zero-day vulnerability that allows hackers to access surveillance cameras, spy on and manipulate video feeds or plant malware. According to a Tenable Research Advisory issued Monday, the bugs are ...
- New Cold Boot Attack Unlocks Disk Encryption On Nearly All Modern PCs
September 13, 2018
Security researchers have revealed a new attack to steal passwords, encryption keys and other sensitive information stored on most modern computers, even those with full disk encryption. The attack is a new variation of a traditional Cold Boot Attack, which is around since 2008 and lets attackers steal information that briefly remains in the memory (RAM) after ...