All news with #phishing tag

🔒Google outlines five practical defenses to help users spot and avoid tax‑season scams. It describes on‑device AI protections on Pixel phones including Call Screen and optional real‑time Scam Detection alerts, plus text‑vetting with Circle to Search and Lens. The post highlights real‑time Safe Browsing, high‑visibility Gmail warning banners and security steps like Passkeys and 2‑Step Verification to reduce fraud risk.

📧 Microsoft Threat Intelligence and the Defender Security Research Team observed a surge of tax-themed phishing and malware campaigns in early 2026, exploiting W-2s, 1099s, IRS notices, and CPA communications to trick recipients. Attackers used Phishing-as-a-Service kits such as Energy365 and SneakyLog, QR-coded documents, and repackaged RMM tools (ScreenConnect, SimpleHelp, Datto) to steal credentials and gain remote access. Highly customized messages, multi-step flows, and legitimate hosting services helped these campaigns evade detection and target both individuals and tax professionals.

🔐 Modern phishing now uses adversary-in-the-middle proxies that capture entire authentication flows, including MFA prompts and session cookies. Employees can complete legitimate logins and still be compromised because attackers replay session tokens from a different machine. Organizations must move beyond traditional MFA and outdated awareness training and instead deploy phishing-resistant authentication, bind sessions to managed devices, and monitor post-authentication behavior.

🔐 In Episode 459 Graham Cluley and Paul Ducklin dissect a near-miss account takeover aimed at WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg that combined MFA prompt fatigue, authentic Apple alerts, a convincing support call and a phishing page. They draw practical lessons on resisting MFA prompt fatigue and social-engineering support scams. The episode also explores UK Biobank re-identification risks and the ethics of sharing lifetime medical data.

🔒 Aura confirmed an unauthorized party accessed nearly 900,000 records containing names and email addresses after a voice‑phishing attack targeted an employee. The company says the data came from an inherited marketing tool tied to a 2021 acquisition and affected roughly 20,000 current and 15,000 former customers, while noting Social Security numbers, account passwords, and financial data were not exposed. Have I Been Pwned added the leak to its database and observed customer service comments and IP addresses among the files. Aura is conducting an internal review with external experts, has notified law enforcement, and plans to send personalized notifications to affected individuals.

🛡️ Rapid7 and Microsoft researchers have documented a ClickFix operation that compromised over 250 WordPress sites to distribute fileless infostealers using counterfeit Cloudflare CAPTCHA prompts. The injected JavaScript hides from administrators and coerces visitors into pasting obfuscated commands that launch an in-memory DoubleDonut loader, which injects payloads into legitimate Windows processes. Observed payloads include a new Vidar variant and two previously undocumented stealers—Impure Stealer (.NET) and VodkaStealer (C++)—both using advanced encoding, encryption and sandbox-detection checks. Site owners are urged to restrict public admin access, tighten credentials and apply the published IOCs and YARA rules.

📦 Group-IB reports a rapid global escalation of fake shipment tracking scams during 2025, jumping from almost no activity in 2024 to more than 100 unique campaigns per month and peaks of 218 and 208 in June and December. Attackers use disposable and lookalike domains, SMS sender spoofing, local-looking numbers and URL masking to trick recipients into providing credentials or paying bogus fees. Many phishing sites share infrastructure linked to the Darcula PhaaS, which offers thousands of counterfeit domains and templates. The report urges organisations to strengthen domain authentication and increase customer alerts.

🛡️ Sophos researchers identified three ClickFix campaigns that used malicious search ads and trusted-host lures to coax macOS users into pasting and executing terminal commands, resulting in the deployment of the MacSync infostealer. The campaigns—first observed in November and December 2025 and refreshed in February 2026—leveraged fake Google Sites, ChatGPT conversation redirects, and GitHub-style pages. The February variant introduced dynamic AppleScript and in-memory execution to harvest credentials, keychain data, files, and crypto seed phrases while attempting to erase traces.

🔒 Researchers warn that criminals have scaled ClickFix social-engineering lures to deliver sophisticated, fileless infostealers via compromised WordPress sites. Rapid7 observed a campaign active since December 2025 that leveraged fake Cloudflare CAPTCHA prompts across more than 250 WordPress domains in 12 countries to trick victims into running obfuscated commands. The chain deploys an in-memory loader called DoubleDonut that injects payloads into legitimate Windows processes, and analysts also observed novel .NET and C++ stealers alongside a new Vidar variant. Microsoft noted a separate campaign that pivots from the Run dialog to Windows Terminal for execution.

🔍 Interpol coordinated Operation Synergia III from 18 July 2025 to 31 January 2026, involving law enforcement units in 72 countries and private partners. The action produced 94 arrests, the seizure of 212 electronic devices and servers, and the takedown of some 45,000 malicious IP addresses, while 110 individuals remain under investigation. The operation targeted phishing, ransomware, romance scams and credit card fraud and disrupted infrastructure used to impersonate banks, government sites and payment services. Private-sector partners including Group-IB, Trend Micro and S2W supplied intelligence that helped identify hosting and malware distribution points.

🛡️ INTERPOL announced the takedown of 45,000 malicious IP addresses and servers linked to phishing, malware, and ransomware campaigns across 72 countries. The effort, part of Operation Synergia's third phase, resulted in 94 arrests, 212 devices seized and 110 suspects under investigation. Targeted actions in Bangladesh, Togo and Macau uncovered large fraud rings and over 33,000 phishing sites.

🔒 Microsoft disclosed a credential-theft campaign that uses SEO poisoning to push trojanized VPN clients impersonating legitimate enterprise software. Attackers hosted ZIPs on GitHub containing MSI installers that sideload malicious DLLs and deploy a Hyrax variant, presenting a fake sign-in dialog to harvest VPN credentials. Microsoft removed the repositories and revoked the signing certificate; organizations should enable MFA and verify software sources.

🔍 An Interpol-led operation, Operation Synergia III, sinkholed tens of thousands of IP addresses and seized servers linked to global cybercrime between July 2025 and January 2026. Authorities from 72 countries made 94 arrests and seized 212 electronic devices, disrupting thousands of phishing and fraud sites including a large 33,000-site network identified in Macau. The action builds on earlier Synergia efforts and highlights the importance of international cooperation and private-sector partnerships to dismantle criminal infrastructures.

🔍 Microsoft warns that the cybercriminal group Storm-2561 is poisoning search results to distribute trojanized VPN clients that harvest corporate credentials. The campaign redirects victims to digitally signed malware hosted on GitHub and then opens legitimate vendor sites to minimize detection. The installer side-loads malicious DLLs — including a variant of the Hyrax infostealer — to extract VPN credentials and achieve persistence via the RunOnce registry key. Microsoft recommends enforcing multifactor authentication, disabling browser password syncing on managed devices, and running endpoint detection and response in block mode with network and web protections enabled.

🔒 Loblaw Companies Limited has detected an intrusion into a contained, non-critical portion of its IT network and confirmed that a criminal third party accessed basic customer information. The exposed data includes names, phone numbers, and email addresses, which could be used for phishing and fraud. Loblaw says there is no evidence that financial information, health data, or account passwords were compromised and that PC Financial has not been impacted. The company has automatically logged customers out, urges users to sign in again and change passwords, and continues to investigate.

🔒 Microsoft Threat Intelligence attributes a mid‑January 2026 credential theft campaign to the cybercriminal group Storm‑2561, which used SEO poisoning to surface malicious ZIP files masquerading as legitimate enterprise VPN installers. The ZIPs contained an MSI that side‑loaded signed trojan DLLs (dwmapi.dll and inspector.dll) which harvested VPN credentials and exfiltrated configuration data to attacker infrastructure. The binaries were signed with a certificate issued to Taiyuan Lihua Near Information Technology Co., Ltd. (now revoked), and the installers mimicked a Pulse Secure client to trick users; GitHub hosts were used but have been removed.

🔒 Kaspersky researchers uncovered malicious Google Search ads that mimic documentation for popular AI assistants (for example, Claude Code, OpenClaw and Doubao) to trick users into running installer commands. The fake guides prompt victims to execute commands that deploy AMOS on macOS (via curl) or the Amatera infostealer on Windows (via mshta.exe), which exfiltrates browser data, crypto-wallets and files to a remote server. Organizations should warn staff, centrally manage access to AI tools and maintain endpoint protections.

🔐 Modern phishing increasingly hides behind legitimate infrastructure and encrypted HTTPS, making static checks insufficient. The piece recommends a three-part investigation model — safe interaction, automation, and in-sandbox SSL decryption — so SOCs can observe full attack flows, extract actionable IOCs, and reach evidence-based verdicts quickly. This approach reduces analyst load and helps detect identity-driven compromise earlier.

🔒 Signal has confirmed that attackers have hijacked some user accounts by tricking victims into handing over verification codes or linking a second device. The company says its encryption and central infrastructure remain uncompromised and that the campaign relies on social engineering rather than exploiting software vulnerabilities. Targeted users received in-app messages purporting to be a "Signal Security Support Chatbot" or were sent QR codes and links that secretly link an attacker’s device. Review Settings > Linked Devices and never share verification codes or your PIN.

🛡️ Attackers increasingly treat high-volume phishing as a weapon, flooding Security Operations Centers to exhaust analysts and hide targeted spear-phish. The article argues defenders must move from rule-based automation to decision-ready investigations—transparent, auditable agentic AI that produces concise verdicts and evidence. This reduces analyst fatigue, restores rapid response, and limits the window for attacker success.