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...

Threat actors continue using COVID-19 fears to exploit individuals on a variety of channels. Today we are taking a look at two new, related SMS lures. 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 first...

Recently we highlighted one of the most common evasion techniques employed by threat actors in order to keep a phishing site online: geoblocking, or blocking by location. However, many other techniques exist, some that are more subtle and make it more difficult for unwanted visitors to view a site. One such method is used to thwart unintended parties - bots, analysts, hosting providers, etc. -...

Every day our teams analyze millions of phish across the web, detected through emails, social media, text messages, and most other common digital vectors. Many phishing sites are easy to review and analyze. However, some threat actors that we track take steps to hide their attacks from people other than their intended victims. This is a defense mechanism that makes it harder to analyze their...

Every second, 5,787 tweets are published. Every minute, 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube. These are just two of the more popular social networks, and among these data points are the occasional references to a specific organization, its brands, and even customers or employees. For many, these brands have a marketing, communications, or even customer service team dedicated to...

Each year new phishing techniques result in more attacks successfully landing in user inboxes. In most cases, threat actors are no different than anyone else, and follow the hottest trends in an effort to be more relevant. During tax season they may push out tax scams, during elections they may push bogus political-inspired healthcare emails, and there are even Game of Thrones inspired...

There are many misconceptions about the dark web and what goes on in the digital underground. Though the dark web is usually associated with criminal activities including drug dealing, human trafficking, selling counterfeit consumer goods and many other malicious acts, not everything in the dark web is completely dark. Many questions are frequently asked about the dark web and to further...

As a marketer I am all too familiar with how social media can benefit or damage a brand. On the one hand, social media offers an easy and (sometimes) free way to communicate with customers, prospects, and partners that many brands have used to great advantage. But on the other hand, it's yet another source of potential threats to an organization's infrastructure and reputation. And for the...