Social Engineering Tactics Targeting Healthcare & Public Health Entities and Providers


Access to employees’ email accounts, and then pivoted to specifically target login information related to the processing of reimbursement payments to insurance companies, medicare, or similar entities.

To gain initial access to victim networks, the threat actor acquired credentials through social engineering or phishing. In some observed instances, the threat actor called an organization’s IT Help Desk posing as an employee of the organization, and triggered a password reset for the targeted employee’s organizational account [T1566.004]. In some instances, by manipulating the IT Help Desk employees, the threat actor was able to bypass multifactor authentication (MFA) [T1556.006]. In another instance, the threat actors registered a phishing domain [T1556.001] that varied by one character from the target organization’s true domain, and targeted the organization’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) [TA1656].

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Source: U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation Cyber Division


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