All news with #vishing tag

🔊 A new platform called ATHR automates telephone-oriented attacks by combining AI voice agents and optional human operators to carry out vishing campaigns and harvest credentials across services including Google, Microsoft, and major crypto platforms. Researchers at Abnormal say ATHR bundles email templates, spoofing, WebRTC/Asterisk routing, and per-target customization into a dashboard that controls distribution, calls, and logging. The service is marketed on underground forums for $4,000 plus a commission and greatly lowers the skill barrier for attackers.

🔒 In this Cyberattack Series report, Microsoft Incident Response (DART) details an identity-first, human-operated intrusion that began with persistent Microsoft Teams voice phishing (vishing). After two failed attempts, the attacker persuaded a third employee to grant remote access via Quick Assist, then directed the user to a spoofed web form to capture corporate credentials and download multiple payloads. An early, disguised MSI sideloaded a malicious DLL to establish outbound command-and-control. DART contained the activity, removed artifacts, and recommends tightening external collaboration and disabling unnecessary remote-access utilities.

⚠️ Scattered LAPSUS$ Hunters (SLH) is reportedly paying $500–$1,000 upfront per call to recruit women for voice phishing campaigns against IT help desks, Dataminr says. The group provides pre-written scripts and leverages advanced social engineering techniques, including MFA prompt bombing and SIM swapping, to gain access. Actors then deploy tunneling tools, residential proxies and legitimate file-sharing services to move laterally, escalate privileges, and exfiltrate data, with some intrusions resulting in ransomware.

📢 Optimizely has confirmed a data breach after attackers used a sophisticated voice‑phishing (vishing) campaign to gain access to some internal systems on or before February 11. The company says the intruders accessed certain CRM records, internal back‑office documents, and basic business contact information but could not escalate privileges, install software, or create backdoors. Optimizely reports no evidence of access to sensitive customer data or personal information beyond business contacts, and business operations remain uninterrupted. It is warning customers to be vigilant for follow‑on phishing attempts leveraging the exposed contact details.

🔍Tax season 2026 brings a renewed surge in IRS-related scams as fraudsters exploit email, text and phone channels to steal refunds and personal data. Scammers impersonate the IRS, tax preparers or software vendors with spoofed logos, domains and caller IDs, and may demand unusual payments or coax victims into filing fraudulent returns. Watch for phishing/smishing/vishing, W-2 fraud, fake tax credits and dishonest preparers. Protect accounts with MFA, consider an IP PIN, file early and report suspicious messages to phishing@irs.gov.

🔒 Mandiant reports a recent wave of ShinyHunters attacks that combine targeted vishing and company‑branded phishing sites to capture SSO credentials and MFA codes. Attackers impersonate IT or helpdesk staff, guide victims through MFA approval or one‑time passcodes in real time, and enroll attacker-controlled MFA devices. With access to Okta, Microsoft Entra, or Google SSO dashboards they pivot into SaaS platforms (Salesforce, Microsoft 365, SharePoint, DocuSign, Slack, Atlassian, Dropbox, Google Drive) to steal and extort cloud data.

📞 Google-owned Mandiant reported an expansion of ShinyHunters-style extortion activity that combines advanced voice phishing with fake credential-harvesting sites to capture SSO credentials and MFA codes to access cloud SaaS environments. The team is tracking multiple clusters (UNC6661, UNC6671, UNC6240) and observed attackers impersonating IT staff, registering attacker-controlled MFA devices, and exfiltrating data from services such as SharePoint and OneDrive. Mandiant recommends strengthening help-desk verification, improving logging and detection, restricting weak authentication methods, and adopting phishing-resistant options like FIDO2 or passkeys.

📞 Notorious extortion group ShinyHunters released tens of gigabytes of files it claims were stolen from dating services including Hinge, Match, OkCupid and Bumble. Researchers link the disclosures to a broader campaign that combines automated phishing kits with voice-based social engineering to capture credentials and MFA tokens in real time. Security firm Silent Push detected a 'Live Phishing Panel' and infrastructure consistent with SLSH activity targeting more than 100 high-value organizations. Organizations are advised to verify IT support calls through official out-of-band channels and audit OSS logs for suspicious device enrollments and new-IP logins.

🔔Okta Threat Intelligence has warned that cybercriminals are combining vishing calls with adaptable phishing sites to social-engineer victims and bypass multi-factor authentication (MFA). Attackers perform reconnaissance, spoof internal IT support numbers during calls and direct users to customized phishing pages that update in real time. Stolen credentials are relayed to attackers who then generate fake MFA prompts to obtain approvals and gain account access.

📞 ShinyHunters says it is behind a wave of voice-phishing campaigns that compromise single sign-on accounts at Okta, Microsoft Entra, and Google, enabling access to downstream SaaS platforms. Attackers call employees posing as IT, steer victims through dynamic phishing pages and capture multi-factor authentication in real time, then enumerate connected applications to harvest data. The group claims Salesforce as a primary target and has issued extortion demands using stolen information.

🔔 Okta warns of bespoke vishing phishing kits sold as a service that enable live adversary-in-the-middle attacks to steal Okta SSO credentials. These kits include a C2 panel that lets callers control the victim's authentication flow in real time and synchronize fraudulent MFA dialogs to bypass push-based protections. Okta urges adoption of phishing-resistant MFA such as Okta FastPass, FIDO2 security keys, or passkeys and recommends user education and vendor notifications.

📞Harvard University disclosed that systems used by Alumni Affairs and Development were accessed in a phone‑based phishing attack discovered on November 18, 2025. Exposed information includes email addresses, phone numbers, home and business addresses, event attendance records, donation details, and biographical data for alumni, donors, some students, faculty and staff. The university stated the compromised systems did not contain Social Security numbers, passwords, payment card data, or financial account information. Harvard sent notifications on November 22 and is working with law enforcement and third‑party cybersecurity experts to investigate and remediate the incident.

🚨 Europol has issued a Position Paper warning of a rising wave of caller ID spoofing, where criminals falsify numbers to impersonate banks, government bodies or relatives. The agency estimates global losses around €850m annually and reports spoofing now underpins roughly 64% of phone- and SMS-related fraud. Europol calls for harmonized technical standards, stronger cross-border cooperation and regulatory convergence to make spoofing harder to perpetrate and easier to investigate.

📞 Outsourced helpdesks are increasingly targeted by vishing and other social‑engineering campaigns. Attackers can exploit service‑desk privileges to reset passwords, disable MFA, enroll devices or elevate access, enabling lateral movement. Clients should require evidence of ISO 27001 compliance, enforce least‑privilege, strict caller authentication and continuous, scenario‑based agent training. Technical controls such as caller ID spoofing detection, deepfake audio checks and MFA on helpdesk tools — combined with MDR monitoring — help close this gap.

⚠️Recent cyberattacks forced production halts at Jaguar Land Rover and Asahi, underscoring that operational disruption is now a primary objective for threat actors. JLR paused production after an August 31 compromise attributed to the Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters group, reportedly using vishing to obtain credentials, while Asahi halted orders and shipments following a systems failure. Experts emphasize that attackers exploit phishing, unpatched systems, and supply‑chain weaknesses, and urge layered defenses such as zero trust, MFA, PAM, micro‑segmentation, continuous monitoring, and air‑gapped backups to preserve business continuity.

🔍 A reader recounts a sophisticated phone scam in which callers posed as bank employees and provided plausible details to build trust. The scammers supplied case numbers and 'cancellation codes,' then transferred the victim to a staged supervisor named Mike Wallace to legitimize their story. Even security-aware individuals can be deceived; the anecdote illustrates how social engineering exploits procedural expectations and authority. Independently verify any unexpected bank contact via official channels before taking action.

🛡️Unit 42 explains why Muddled Libra receives outsized attention: the group uses a consistent playbook, industry-focused waves of attacks, and unusually convincing English-language vishing that makes attribution and impact more visible. In 2025 cases, about 50% led to DragonForce ransomware deployment and data exfiltration, heightening executive concern. The report highlights practical defenses such as Conditional Access Policies and analytic correlation with tools like Cortex XSIAM to detect and disrupt operations.