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Cyberattackers have targeted students at national universities in the US with a sophisticated Instagram-style phishing campaign. A different kind of gambit involves using a valid domain in an effort to steal credentials, bypassing Microsoft 365 and Exchange email protections in the process.
The attack created by the community, about 22,000 mailboxes, used the hands of Instagram users in messages that show the dead have a “different login” on their account, according to a blog post published on November 17 by Armorblox Research Group.
The login trick is new for phishers. But hackers also sent messages from legitimate email domains, making it more difficult for users with email screening technology to flag the messages as fraudulent, the researchers said.
“Traditional security training advises looking at email addresses before responding for clear signs of fraud,” they said in the post. “However, in this case, a quick scan of the domain address would not have alerted the end user to the fraud caused by the domain authority.”
Since phishing has been around for a long time, attackers know that most people who use email have it and know how to spot fraudulent messages. This has forced threat actors to be creative in their efforts to trick users into thinking that phishing emails are legitimate.
In addition, university students who use Instagram may be among the most savvy internet users, who are more mature in using the technology – which may be why they are more cautious. those attacking this campaign should be seen as real.
In any case, the combination of authentication, signature modeling, and the right domain allows attackers to send messages successfully through Office 365 and Exchange protections, but DKIM, DMARC , and SPF email authentication checks, the researchers said. .
“Based on additional analysis from the Armorblox Research Group, the donor region received a prestigious rating of “confidence” with no deaths in the past 12 months of the region’s 41 months,” they said. wrote in the post.
“Alternate Login” Lure
Researchers at Armorblox said the attacks started with an email with the subject line “We noticed an unusual login, [user handle],” using a simple technique to motivate the recipient to read the email and take action.
The body of the email looks like the Instagram logo, and it looks like it comes from the social media support team, along with the sender’s name, Instagram profile, and email address – that’s great.”[email protected]” – it all seems right, they say.
With the message the user knows that an unknown device from a specific location and machine with a specific operating system – in the case of a model shared by Amorblox, Budapest and Windows – has logged into their account .
“This targeted email attack was created by the community, containing information about the recipient – such as his Instagram username – to make people believe that this email is a legitimate message from Instagram,” wrote the researcher.
Hackers trick recipients into clicking on a link asking them to “secure” their login information at the bottom of the email, which leads to a fake landing page created by threat actors to delete user credentials. If someone has already been to the other side, the landing page will redirect, like an email, and mimic a legitimate Instagram page, the researchers said.
“The information contained in this fake landing page gives victims a level of detail to validate the information in the email and increase the likelihood of taking action and clicking the call-to-action button , ‘This is not me,'” said the researchers.
If users take the bait and click to “verify” their account, they are redirected to a second fake landing page that claims to be Instagram and prompts them to change their account credentials as they think they have. someone stole it.
Of course, the page itself can be hacked if the user logs in with new credentials, the researchers said.
Avoiding Identity and Identity Theft
As malicious actors become more adept at creating phishing emails, so must enterprises and their users to detect them.
Since the Instagram phishing campaign was able to bypass basic email protections, the researchers said organizations should increase email security with layers that take a different approach to detecting threats. To help them find solutions, they can use reliable research from firms such as Gartner and others to find the best options for their business.
Employees should be advised or trained to watch out for the increasing social technology signs in phishing campaigns, rather than to quickly perform tasks requested in email messages, our brains have been trained to work, say the researchers.
“Submit the email to an eye test that includes checking the sender’s name, sender email address, language in the email, and logical differences in the email,” they wrote.
In addition, the researchers said, using multiple authentication and password management across personal and business accounts can prevent financial compromise if an attacker gets hold of the credentials of the user through phishing.
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