Phishing cyberattack steals corporate email credentials installs malware on victims computers
A massive phishing email campaign is targeting Microsoft’s Office 365 and Google’s Gmail accounts worldwide. The attackers send phishing emails with links and redirects to spoofed Office 365 login pages.
The attackers impersonate well known apps such Microsoft Office, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and more. Tens of thousands of mailboxes across numerous industries and regions, including senior executives and finance personnel are being targeted.
The phishing campaign attempts to steal the victim’s corporate email login credentials. if the user clicks on a link in the email, they are either sent directly to or redirected to a malicious credential phishing page. The fake Microsoft Office 365 login form uses the Microsoft branding and is crafted to look like a real Microsoft login screen to trick the victim.
As if credential phishing wasn’t bad enough, the phishing domain also contains malicious JavaScript that can infect the reader’s computer with Trojans and malware even if they don’t enter their email credentials.
“This is a pervasive and significant event. While our customers are protected, this is an attack that appears to have easily bypassed both platform controls and multiple legacy secure email gateway solutions, says cyber security researchers at the GreatHorn Threat Intelligence Team.
The phishing websites almost always use the same naming convention of http://t.[XXX]/r/, where [XXX] is the domain name.
Domains redirecting to the phishing sites and fraudulent login pages:
- sony-europe.com (Sony)
- lafourchette.com (TripAdvisor)
- rac.co.uk (RAC)
Static phishing webpages:
- digitaloceanspaces.com (DigitalOcean)
- firebasestorage.googleapis.com (Google)
“Widespread and utilizing multiple techniques to deceive users, this represents the kind of advanced phishing attack that necessitates a modern email security program capable of finding and interdicting threats before, during, and after an incident,” said Kevin O’Brien, CEO, and Co-Founder of GreatHorn.
How to mitigate this phishing email campaign:
The phishing emails use a variety of URL paths in the malicious links to help evade detection by email filters. This attack is also harder to detect because it uses redirects andsubsidiary domains.
- System administrators should scan corporate emails for messages containing URLs that use the naming structure http://t.[XXX]/r/
- Email users should enable two-factor authentication or multi-factor authentication (MFA) when possible
- Users should never click on links in emails from people they don’t know or weren’t expecting a message from
