Impersonating legitimate companies and using a complex mix of fake personas across Facebook, Telegram, and other platforms, these groups used social engineering to gain network access.
One way to compromise a user with access to critical data, systems, and applications is to pretend to be a recruiter looking to hire the very same position at another company. The lure of better pay, a better working environment, and a step up in the corporate ladder appears to be all it takes for the three cyber espionage groups from Iran and Azerbaijan to target companies in the energy, maritime, semiconductor, and telecom industries in several countries, including the United States, Israel, Russia, and Canada – according to a new Adversarial Threat report, put out by the security team at Meta.
According to the report, the threat groups relied heavily on social engineering across Meta’s platforms – fake users, spoofed domains, fake recruiting firms, email phishing, and other tactics were all used to get victims to download malware disguised as a VPN app, a salary calculator, an audio book reader, or a chat app.
From the report:
For example, an interview app would launch a built-in chat function for an attacker to supply a password to start an interview. When the target entered the password, it activated the delivery of the malware.
Other campaigns unrelated to recruiting were also used.
According to Meta, their “Inauthentic Behavior” policies helped identify user, groups, and pages that were being used as part of these campaigns.
A good social engineering campaign is firmly rooted in anything that will get an emotional response from the victim. And the better the targeting, the more likely the attacker will get the desired response. This is why it’s so important to educate users via Security Awareness Training when they’re not emotionally invested mid-attack to be mindful that phishing attacks and the use of social engineering are the crux of most cyberattacks – teaching them to identify telltale signs and how to avoid being the next victim.
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