Resources

Blog

Account Takeover Attacks Cause Chaos @ Twitter

On Tuesday afternoon, dozens of high-profile Twitter accounts were hijacked to promote cryptocurrency scams. Threat actors took over the accounts of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Jeff Bezos, and many others. Corporate Twitter accounts were also hijacked, including those belonging to cryptocurrency companies. What does this mean for enterprises and their security teams? Threat actors...
Blog

Gartner Releases 2020 Hype Cycle for Security Operations

Digital Risk Protection has emerged as a critical new capability for security teams. It protects critical digital assets and data from external threats across surface, dark, and deep web sources. In Gartner's latest Hype Cycle for Security Operations, the author writes “This technology accelerates the breadth and depth of protecting digital assets in an organization by significantly improving...
Blog

Spoofed Domains Present Multifaceted, Growing Problems for Enterprises

Threat actors are increasingly registering new domains to launch malicious campaigns against enterprises. Identifying suspicious domains, as well as monitoring existing ones for changes, is an overwhelming and reactive task for many organizations. In order to minimize the risk spoofed domains pose, security teams must be able to efficiently detect abuse and understand what is required to...
Blog

Executive Impersonation Techniques on Social Media

Threat actors are masquerading as executives on social media for purposes of stealing credentials and damaging popular brands. Today, many executives have accounts on these platforms to network as well as post content promoting their companies. Unfortunately, it is easy for bad actors to create fake accounts and reach massive audiences by impersonating well-known individuals. These types of...
Blog

Abuse of HTTPS on Nearly Three-Fourths of all Phishing Sites

Since 2015, PhishLabs has and continues to track how threat actors abuse HTTPS or SSL certs. In particular, threat actors often use HTTPS on their phishing sites to add a layer of legitimacy, better mimic the target site in question, and reduce being flagged or blocked from some browsers. Last year, threat actors hit a significant milestone in this usage when more than 50% of phishing sites...
Blog

FBI Warns of Growing Mobile Banking App Threats

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) published a public service announcement Wednesday warning the public of anticipated cyber attacks that exploit increased usage of mobile banking apps. The advisory comes at a time when a vast majority of Americans are working from home due to social distancing, and as a result, rely more on mobile apps to do their banking. According to the report, there...
Blog

Data Leakage on Social Media: Credit Card Info, Confidential Docs

When the term data leak comes to mind, most enterprises think of the dark web. Although compromised information can damage an organization when distributed through gated and anonymous platforms, we are seeing social channels being used to allow for a more rapid and potentially destructive outcome. These platforms have an overwhelming number of global participants, with almost half of the world...
Blog

Social Media Platforms Latest Channels used to Leak Sensitive Data

Threat actors are using social media accounts to expose and sell data that has been compromised. While information found on many of these platforms has traditionally been disclosed by enterprises and individuals with intent, cyber criminals are taking information acquired by means of scams and data breaches and promoting their sale on various social platforms not always monitored by security...
Blog

Threat Actors Impersonate Brands on Social Media for Malicious Purposes

With more than 2.95 billion people now estimated to use social media, an organization's online presence directly relates to the satisfaction of its customers, as well as its profits. False or misleading images or comments connected with a brand on online platforms can swiftly impact the reputation or even financials of an otherwise successful company. While most individuals have been...
Blog

Reporting Cyber Threats: Executives at Risk

Across the cybersecurity industry, white papers and reports typically highlight high-level trends related to cyber threats. However, what is often overlooked is a more granular analysis that focuses on individuals within an organization. More specifically, the high-value targets that threat actors focus much of their attention on. As part of an ongoing series, PhishLabs will examine how...
Blog

COVID-19 Phishing Update: File Sharing Services Abused to Steal Credentials

As enterprise workforces continue to transition to remote environments, online file sharing and cloud storage tools are becoming a frequent, if not necessary means of collaboration. While abusing these types of platforms is nothing new to threat actors, the lures they use are now taking advantage of the novel coronavirus. The two examples below demonstrate how. We are providing ongoing...
Blog

COVID-19 Phishing Update: Threat Actors on Twitter Want You to Pay for Your Stolen Passwords

Cyber criminals are using COVID-19 to manipulate users on Twitter and steal funds through payment applications. Our latest example demonstrates how victims are being targeted with fake credential dumps. We are providing ongoing updates on coronavirus-themed attacks observed by the PhishLabs team. This post and others are meant to help the security community stay up-to-date on how threat...
Blog

COVID-19 Phishing Update: BEC Lures use Pandemic to Enhance Attacks

Threat actors are using the novel coronavirus to add credibility in recent Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks. Below are three examples of how they are doing it. We are providing ongoing updates on coronavirus-themed attacks observed by the PhishLabs team. This post and others are meant to help the security community stay up-to-date on how threat actors are exploiting the pandemic. ...
Blog

COVID-19 Phishing Update: Money Mule Scams Use Remote Opportunities to Entice Victims

As job losses grow due to the coronavirus pandemic, cybercriminals are taking advantage of the situation to recruit individuals into money mule scams. Below are two examples that reference work-from-home opportunities. We are providing ongoing updates on coronavirus-themed attacks observed by the PhishLabs team. This post and others are meant to help the security community stay up-to-date...
Blog

COVID-19 Phishing Update: Scammers Impersonating Financial Institutions on Instagram

Threat actors are using the novel coronavirus to impersonate accounts on social media. The example below targets members of a credit union. We are providing ongoing updates on coronavirus-themed attacks observed by the PhishLabs team. This post and others are meant to help the security community stay up-to-date on how threat actors are exploiting the pandemic. The threat actor...
On-Demand Webinar

Domains and the Open Web: Defending Against Ever-Evolving Threats Webinar

Big or small, enterprise or startup, in today’s world nearly every business across the globe has some form of digital presence. In most cases this is a website, in others, this may include social media or apps. This is due in part to the ease in establishing these properties, which makes it more accessible than ever before. However, as easy as it is to establish a brand online, so too is it for a...
On-Demand Webinar

Benchmarking from the World's Largest Phishing Exercise

Theo Zafirakos, CISO, Terranova by Fortra More than a million corporate users worldwide take part in the Gone Phishing Tournament, hosted by Terranova Security and Microsoft. In this PhishLabs webinar, we’ve invited Theo Zafirakos, CISO of fellow Fortra solution Terranova, to share the latest trends and benchmarking data from the global tournament. Attend the webinar to learn: Average click...
Blog

COVID-19 Phishing Update: Money-Flipping Schemes Promise Coronavirus Cash

Threat actors are using social media to engage in money-flipping scams abusing the novel coronavirus. The two examples below demonstrate how they are doing it. We are providing ongoing updates on coronavirus-themed attacks observed by the PhishLabs team. This post and others are meant to help the security community stay up-to-date on how threat actors are exploiting the pandemic. The...
Blog

COVID-19 Phishing Update: Threat Actors Abusing Utility Concerns

In response to the financial difficulties resulting from COVID-19, many utilities have announced policy changes to suspend disconnects and provide relief to customers. As a result, many people are uncertain about what will happen should they be unable to pay their utility bills during the pandemic. As our latest example shows, this uncertainty is being exploited by threat actors. We are...
Blog

COVID-19 Phishing Update: Bad Actors Use Stimulus Payment Delays to Capture Banking Credentials

With many U.S. citizens still waiting to receive their government-mandated stimulus, we are again seeing cyber criminals shift their tactics in accordance with the news cycle. Below is one example of a lure abusing access to an undeliverable stimulus payment. We are providing ongoing updates on coronavirus-themed attacks observed by the PhishLabs team. This post and others are meant to...