All news with #account takeover tag

Microsoft Disrupts RaccoonO365 Phishing Kit Network

🛡️ Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit says it has dismantled the infrastructure behind RaccoonO365, seizing 338 malicious websites tied to the Storm-2246 phishing kit. The DCU, acting under a court order from the Southern District of New York, identified Nigeria-based operator Joshua Ogundipe and disrupted a Telegram-based subscription service with roughly 850 members. Microsoft says the service, launched July 2024, enabled the theft of thousands of Microsoft365 credentials, included tools to bypass MFA, and recently promoted an AI-powered feature to scale attacks.

Fraudulent Account Created in Google's LERS Portal

🔒 Google has confirmed that a fraudulent account was created in its Law Enforcement Request System (LERS) and has been disabled. The company says no requests were made and no data was accessed. The claim was posted by a group calling itself Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters, which also alleged access to the FBI's eCheck system; the FBI declined to comment. The group has a history of high-profile Salesforce-related thefts and has publicly taunted law enforcement and security researchers.

VoidProxy Phishing Framework Bypasses MFA for SSO Logins

🔒 Okta threat researchers have identified a Phishing-as-a-Service called VoidProxy that leverages Adversary-in-the-Middle techniques to capture usernames, passwords, MFA codes and session cookies from Microsoft, Google and several SSO providers. The service uses compromised email service provider accounts, URL shorteners, Cloudflare Workers and disposable domains to evade detection and takedown. Victim credentials and session tokens are proxied to legitimate services, allowing attackers to reuse valid session cookies. Okta warns legacy methods such as SMS and OTP are especially vulnerable to this attack.

Browser-Based Attacks: Six Threats Security Teams Must Know

🔒 Browser-targeted attacks are rising as adversaries treat the browser as the primary access point to cloud services and corporate data. The article defines browser-based attacks and enumerates six high-risk techniques: credential and session phishing, ClickFix-style copy-and-paste exploits, malicious OAuth consent flows, rogue extensions, malicious file delivery, and credential reuse where MFA gaps exist. These vectors are effective because modern work happens in decentralized SaaS environments and across many delivery channels, making traditional email- and network-centric defenses less reliable. The piece highlights visibility gaps for security teams and points to vendor platforms such as Push Security that claim to provide in-browser detection and remediation for AiTM phishing, OAuth abuse, and session hijacking.

Whistleblower Lawsuit Alleges WhatsApp Security Failures

🛡️ Attaullah Baig, former head of security at WhatsApp, has filed a whistleblower lawsuit alleging that Facebook knowingly failed to fix multiple security flaws in breach of its 2019 settlement with the FTC. The complaint asserts that in 2022 roughly 100,000 accounts were compromised daily, rising to as many as 400,000 daily lockouts by last year, and that inadequate anti-scraping protections exposed profile data at scale. Baig invokes the whistleblower-protection provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and the filing has prompted wider media coverage and potential regulatory scrutiny.

ICO: Students Cause Majority of UK School Data Breaches

🔒 The ICO analyzed 215 insider personal data breach reports from the UK education sector between January 2022 and August 2024 and found students were responsible for 57% of incidents. Around 30% of breaches involved stolen login credentials, with students accounting for 97% of those attacks by guessing weak passwords or using credentials found on paper. The report highlights cases where pupils used freely available tools to break into school systems and access or alter thousands of records. The ICO urges parents, schools and the wider industry to channel curiosity into legitimate cyber careers and strengthen basic protections.

Daikin Security Gateway: Weak Password Recovery Flaw

🔓 CISA published an advisory describing an authorization bypass in Daikin Security Gateway devices that abuses a weak password recovery mechanism. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-10127, is remotely exploitable with low complexity and carries a CVSS v4 score of 8.8; public proof‑of‑concept code exists. Daikin has indicated it will not issue a vendor-wide patch and will handle customer inquiries directly; CISA recommends isolating affected devices, placing them behind firewalls, and using secure, up-to-date VPNs or other hardened remote access controls.

Three French Regional Healthcare Agencies Hit by Attack

🔒 Three French regional healthcare agencies (ARS) have reported similar cyber-attacks that exposed patients’ personal data held on regional systems. Preliminary investigations, announced on September 8, indicate attackers gained access by impersonating healthcare professionals and used those accounts to reach GRADeS-managed services such as Normand'e-Santé. Reported exposed PII includes full names, ages, phone numbers and email addresses, while the agencies say no clinical health records appear to have been compromised. Compromised accounts were disabled, additional protections deployed, potentially affected patients will be notified and incidents have been reported to CNIL.

Malicious Browser Extensions Target Meta Advertisers

🔒 Researchers disclosed two coordinated campaigns that distribute fake browser extensions via malvertising and counterfeit sites to steal credentials, session tokens, and hijack Meta business accounts. Bitdefender documented ads pushing a fake "Meta Verified" add‑on named SocialMetrics Pro that harvests Facebook session cookies and exfiltrates them to a Telegram bot while also querying ipinfo[.]io for IP data. Cybereason described a separate campaign using counterfeit sites promoting a bogus Madgicx Plus platform and multiple rogue Chrome extensions that request broad site access, capture Google identity data, then pivot to Facebook to facilitate account takeover.

How Cybercriminals Bypass Logins Using Stolen Credentials

🔐 Cybercriminals increasingly target corporate credentials, authentication tokens and session cookies to bypass MFA and impersonate legitimate users. Stolen credentials accounted for a large share of recent breaches and estimates indicate billions of credentials were exposed in 2024. Organizations can reduce risk with Zero Trust, robust MFA, realistic training and continuous behavioral monitoring to detect suspicious sessions.

Patch SessionReaper: Critical Adobe Commerce/Magento Flaw

🔒 Adobe issued an emergency out-of-band patch for a critical vulnerability in Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce, tracked as CVE-2025-54236 and dubbed SessionReaper. The flaw permits unauthenticated attackers to hijack user accounts and, when file-based session storage is used, can enable remote code execution. Adobe notified Commerce customers on Sept. 4 but Magento Open Source users may not have received the same advance warning. Organizations operating Magento sites should apply the patch immediately.

Social-Engineered Help Desk Breach Costs Clorox $380M

🔐 Attackers affiliated with the Scattered Spider group exploited weak vendor phone procedures to obtain repeated password and MFA resets from Cognizant’s service desk, then used the access to escalate to domain-admin footholds at Clorox. Clorox says the intrusion caused roughly $380 million in damages, including remediation and extended business-interruption losses. The case highlights failure to follow agreed verification processes and the amplified risk of outsourced help desks. Organizations should enforce out-of-band caller verification, immutable reset logs, and automated containment to reduce the attacker window.

Salty2FA Phishing Kit Targets US and EU Enterprises

⚠️ Researchers at ANY.RUN have uncovered Salty2FA, a new phishing-as-a-service kit engineered to harvest credentials and bypass multiple two-factor authentication methods. First observed gaining momentum in mid-2025, the kit uses multi-stage redirects, Cloudflare checks and evasive hosting to slip past automated filters. Salty2FA intercepts push, SMS and voice codes, enabling account takeover across finance, energy and telecom sectors.

Threat Actor Reveals Tradecraft After Installing Agent

🔎Huntress analysts discovered a threat actor inadvertently exposing their workflows after installing the vendor's security agent on their own machine. The agent logged three months of activity, revealing heavy use of AI text and spreadsheet generators, automation platforms like Make.com, proxy services and Telegram Bot APIs to streamline operations. Investigators linked the infrastructure to thousands of compromised identities while many attempts were blocked by existing detections.

Salty2FA Phishing Kit Employs Sophisticated Evasion Tools

⚠️ Researchers have exposed a Salty2FA phishing kit that applies enterprise-grade tactics to harvest credentials and bypass detection. The campaign uses session-based subdomain rotation, abuse of legitimate platforms for staging, and corporate-branded login replicas to increase believability. Operators integrate Cloudflare Turnstile and obfuscated, XOR-encrypted JavaScript to block automated analysis and frustrate forensic inspection. Targets include healthcare, finance, technology, energy and automotive sectors, underscoring the need for updated defenses beyond traditional indicators.

Hackers Briefly Compromise Two ARTE YouTube Channels

⚠️ Unknown actors briefly gained control of two YouTube channels belonging to the German-French cultural broadcaster Arte, the broadcaster said. The intrusion affected the main channel and Arte Concert, temporarily replacing documentaries and concert programming with cryptocurrency videos and clips referencing Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Arte said the unauthorized access was blocked and a comprehensive analysis of causes and scope is under way; Medieninsider first reported the incident.

18 Popular JavaScript Packages Hijacked to Steal Crypto

🔐 Akido researchers found that at least 18 widely used JavaScript packages on NPM were briefly modified after a maintainer was phished, impacting libraries downloaded collectively more than two billion times weekly. The injected code acted as a stealthy browser interceptor, capturing and rewriting cryptocurrency wallet interactions and payment destinations to attacker-controlled accounts. The changes were rapidly removed, but experts warn the same vector could deliver far more disruptive supply-chain malware if not addressed. Security specialists urge mandatory phish-resistant 2FA and stronger commit attestation for high-impact packages.

Remote Access Abuse Signals Major Pre-Ransomware Risk

🔒 Cisco Talos finds abuses of remote access software and services are the most common pre-ransomware indicator, with threat actors leveraging legitimate tools such as RDP, PsExec, PowerShell and remote-support apps like AnyDesk and Microsoft Quick Assist. The report highlights credential dumping (for example, Mimikatz) and network discovery as other frequent TTPs. It recommends rapid response, MFA, application allowlisting and enhanced endpoint monitoring to limit ransomware execution.

Principal Financial Adopts Biometrics to Stop Account Fraud

🔐 Principal Financial replaced brittle knowledge-based authentication with a digital ID verification and biometric platform to block account takeovers. Using DIVA with a focus on facial recognition and an implementation by Onfido (an Entrust company), the insurer completed rollout within months. The change has virtually eliminated fraudulent registrations and improved user success and completion rates while preserving usability.

FBI: Seniors Targeted by Three-Phase Phantom Scams

⚠️ The FBI and its Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) warn that seniors are being targeted by a three‑phase “Phantom Hacker” scam that combines tech‑support, financial‑institution, and U.S. government impersonations to extract life savings. Scammers typically gain trust by convincing victims to grant remote access, then prompt transfers via wire, cash, or cryptocurrency to purportedly secure accounts. The IC3 reports substantial losses—an average of US $83,000 per victim—and urges people not to allow remote access, download unsolicited software, or transfer funds at the request of unknown callers.