Researchers at IBM X-Force are tracking several large phishing campaigns spreading an updated version of the Grandoreiro banking trojan.
The criminal malware operation was disrupted by law enforcement in January 2024 but resurfaced in March with an expanded set of targets. The new version of the malware is targeting more than 1,500 banks in over sixty countries.
“Although campaigns have traditionally been limited to Latin America, Spain, and Portugal, X-Force observed recent campaigns impersonating Mexico’s Tax Administration Service (SAT), Mexico’s Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), Mexico’s Secretary of Administration and Finance, the Revenue Service of Argentina, and notably the South African Revenue Service (SARS),” the researchers write.
“The reworked malware and new targeting may indicate a change in strategy since the latest law enforcement action against Grandoreiro, likely prompting the operators to start expanding the deployment of Grandoreiro in global phishing campaigns, beginning with South Africa.”
The phishing emails impersonate various government agencies in the targeted countries, informing users that they need to open an urgent document. The documents are designed to trick users into installing the malware.
“In each campaign, the recipients are instructed to click on a link to view an invoice or fee, account statement, make a payment, etc. depending on the impersonated entity,” the researchers write.
“If the user who clicks on the links is within a specific country (depending on the campaign, Mexico, Chile, Spain, Costa Rica, Peru, or Argentina), they are redirected to an image of a PDF icon, and a ZIP file is downloaded in the background. The ZIP files contain a large executable disguised with a PDF icon, found to have been created the day prior to, or the day of the email being sent.”
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