A new phishing campaign is being conducted that abuses trust in cybersecurity companies. The campaign uses scare tactics to get company employers to pick up the phone and speak to the cybersecurity vendor about a recently detected data breach and potential workstation compromise.
It is becoming increasingly common for phishing scams to involve initial contact via email with requests to make a call. This tactic is often used in tech support scams, where victims are convinced they have a malware infection or another serious security issue on their device, and they are tricked into downloading malicious software such as Remote Access Trojans (RATs).
RATs give the attackers access to the user’s computer, and that access can be abused by the attacker or the access can be sold to other threat groups such as ransomware gangs. Affiliates of ransomware-as-a-service operations may use this technique to conduct attacks and are then paid a percentage of any ransom payments they generate.
In this campaign, the impersonated companies are very well-known providers of enterprise security solutions, such as CrowdStrike, and the emails are very well written and convincing. They claim that a data breach has been detected that affected the part of the cybersecurity provider’s network associated with the customer’s workstation and warns that all workstations on the network may have been compromised. As such, the cybersecurity company is conducting an audit.
The emails claim that the cybersecurity vendor has reached out to the IT department, which has instructed the vendor to contain individual users directly. The emails claim that the audit is necessary for compliance with the Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA) and other regulations and that the agreement between the targeted individual’s company and the cybersecurity vendor allows it to conduct regular audits and security checks. A phone number is provided for the individual to make contact, and the email includes the correct corporate logo and genuine address of the cybersecurity vendor.
CrowdStrike reports that a similar scam has been conducted by the Wizard Spider threat group, which was responsible for Ryuk ransomware attacks. That campaign delivered BazarLoader malware, which was used to deliver the ransomware payload.
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This type of phishing attempt is known as callback phishing. This technique can be effective at bypassing email security solutions since the emails contain no malicious content – There are no hyperlinks and no file attachments. This scam highlights the importance of conducting security awareness training on the workforce to help employees identify and avoid phishing scams.
How TitanHQ Can Help
TitanHQ provides a range of security solutions for blocking phishing attacks, including SpamTitan Email Security, WebTitan DNS Filtering, and the SafeTitan Security Awareness and Phishing Simulation Platform.
SafeTitan has an extensive library of interactive, gamified, and engaging training content for improving security awareness of the workforce, including phishing and the full range of cyberattacks that employees are likely to encounter. The training is delivered in easily assimilated modules of no more than 8 to 10 minutes, and training can be delivered in real-time in response to risky user behaviors to nip bad security practices in the bud. The platform also includes hundreds of phishing templates for conducting and automating phishing simulations on the workforce, to gain insights into the individuals who are susceptible to phishing attacks and any knowledge gaps.
For more information on improving your defenses against phishing attacks, review our solutions in the links at the top of this page or give the team a call. Products are available on a free trial and demonstrations can be arranged on request.