Explosion of Zoom Meeting Phishing Attacks Over Spring and Summer of 2020 and Targeting Office365 and Outlook Credentials



iStock-1218531078Researchers at INKY have observed an “explosion” of Zoom-themed phishing attacks over the Spring and Summer of 2020. Most of the attacks are aimed at stealing credentials to services like Outlook and Office 365 by directing users to spoofed login pages. The researchers say they’ve observed the emails being sent from legitimate, compromised accounts as well as convincing spoofed domains.

“At INKY, most of the Zoom impersonator phishing emails we have seen came from hijacked accounts, but we also saw newly created domain names like zoomcommuncations[.]com and zoomvideoconfrence[.]com,” they write. “As disturbing as that is, it’s also what makes these fake meeting invitations so easy to fall for and so difficult for traditional Secure Email Gateways (SEGs) to catch.”

Additionally, the attackers are using obfuscation and other techniques that make it more difficult for security systems to detect their phishing pages.

“If the hacker includes a fake attachment, it leads to a fake login page that’s locally hosted on the recipient’s computer, not the internet,” the researchers write. “To make matters worse, the HTML, JavaScript, and PHP code is usually encoded so it’s unreadable to humans and automated security tools. It’s a clever way to remain undetectable and evade URL reputation checkers. Similarly, if the hacker includes a malicious link, these redirect to a fake login that’s hosted on a compromised server or a hosting service the attacker paid for.”

INKY provides a number of screenshots of some of the spoofed websites, and they appear identical to the legitimate login portals for Outlook and Office 365. In the Outlook example, the site’s URL was “owa-mail-auth[.]web[.]app,” which could fool even someone who had been trained to scrutinize URLs.

Attackers are constantly taking steps to improve the reach and effectiveness of their phishing campaigns. New-school security awareness training can enable your employees to avoid falling for these attacks, even if the phishing sites appear perfectly convincing.

INKY has the story.


Free Phishing Security Test

Would your users fall for convincing phishing attacks? Take the first step now and find out before bad actors do. Plus, see how you stack up against your peers with phishing Industry Benchmarks. The Phish-prone percentage is usually higher than you expect and is great ammo to get budget.

PST ResultsHere's how it works:

  • Immediately start your test for up to 100 users (no need to talk to anyone)
  • Select from 20+ languages and customize the phishing test template based on your environment
  • Choose the landing page your users see after they click
  • Show users which red flags they missed, or a 404 page
  • Get a PDF emailed to you in 24 hours with your Phish-prone % and charts to share with management
  • See how your organization compares to others in your industry

Go Phishing Now!

PS: Don't like to click on redirected buttons? Cut & Paste this link in your browser:

https://www.knowbe4.com/phishing-security-test-offer



Subscribe To Our Blog


Comprehensive Anti-Phishing Guide




Get the latest about social engineering

Subscribe to CyberheistNews