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Known by aliases such as UNC3944, Scatter Swine, and Muddled Libra, Scatter Spider is an extremely persistent and adaptable cybercriminal group focused on financial gain. In the current cyber threat environment, the Scatter Spider group stands out as one of the most persistent and adaptive threat actors. Having been active since May of 2022, the group has built a reputation for targeting high-value organisations in several sectors, including telecommunications, outsourcing companies, cloud providers, and technology companies.
A deliberate strategy to exploit industries that have large customer bases and complex IT infrastructure has been demonstrated by their focus on expanding further in recent months to include retail giants, financial institutions, and airlines.
Scattered Spider is known for its sophisticated use of social engineering, specifically utilising the manipulation of IT help desks to gain unauthorised access to enterprise networks. That is why Scattered Spider has become one of the world's leading social engineering firms.
As a result of this approach, the group has been able to bypass conventional perimeter defences and move laterally inside victim environments with alarming speed and precision, often without any detection.
Despite the group's continuous evolution, both in terms of their technical abilities and their operational scope, recent breaches involving large UK retailers and airline companies highlight their continued evolution.
A cybersecurity practitioner is strongly advised to gain a deeper understanding of the evolving techniques used by Scattered Spider because their operations are escalating in frequency and impact.
It is vital to implement proactive defence measures to combat the threat posed by this increasingly sophisticated adversary, including training employees on security risks, implementing rigorous access controls, and monitoring the network continuously.
With Scattered Spider, there is a significant shift in the threat landscape since it emphasises identity-based attacks over technical exploits, which represents a disruptive shift in the threat landscape that differs from traditional threat actors who tend to exploit technical vulnerabilities and deploy advanced malware.
They use social engineering as their main attack vector rather than zero-day vulnerabilities, which means their operations are rooted in human manipulation rather than zero-day vulnerabilities.
They typically attack outsourced IT services providers and help desks as their entry points. They usually pose as legitimate employees and exploit routine support workflows by impersonating them.
With the help of social engineering, Scattered Spider bypasses many conventional security controls and gains privileged access to any network with minimal resistance. Once within a network, Scattered Spider does not rely on complex backdoors or stealthy implants to gain access to the network.
By exploiting identity systems, they can move laterally and escalate privileges by utilising legitimate credentials and internal knowledge.
In addition to their ability to mimic internal users, use company-specific jargon and employ familiar tools, they are able to blend seamlessly into normal operations with ease. Despite the fact that it is common for commonly trusted administrative tools like PowerShell, remote monitoring and management (RMM) platforms, and cloud service provider consoles to be misused, detecting these threats can be a challenge.
Scattered Spider performs independent attacks regularly.
It has been linked to notorious ransomware collectives such as ALPHV (BlackCat) and DragonForce and often acts as an initial access broker or even the operator of the attack, although their alliances are only opportunistic at best.
Throughout their history, the group has demonstrated a willingness to abandon or undermine partners if that would serve their own objectives. This is an unpredictable behaviour that has earned them a reputation for being volatile. In their operations, Scattered Spider has demonstrated agility, resourcefulness, and defiance towards conventional hierarchies, the mindset of a rogue start-up.
The combination of this unpredictability with their deep knowledge of enterprise environments makes them a formidable adversary that is unique in the industry.
As a result of recent developments, Scattered Spider has been increasing its operational reach, which has heightened concerns within the cybersecurity community. In a public statement shared with me via LinkedIn, Sam Rubin, a representative of Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42, confirmed that the threat actor has been actively targeting the aviation sector for some time.
The expert stressed that organisations, particularly those within critical infrastructure and transportation sectors-have to remain vigilant against sophisticated social engineering campaigns. Specifically, Rubin advised that suspicious requests for multi-factor authentication resets (MFA) were becoming increasingly common among identity-centric intrusion groups, a hallmark of their approach to identity theft.
Similarly, Google's cybersecurity company Mandiant echoed these concerns as it observed Scattered Spider's activities as well. In response to this, Mandiant also issued a warning. In its recent report, Mandiant highlighted a pattern of attacks affecting airline and transportation companies in the U.S., as well asthe recent targeting of companies within the U.S. insurance industry.
As the firm says, the numerous incidents of this group closely align with its established method of operation, particularly in terms of impersonation, identity abuse, and exploitation of IT support workflows, which are all part of the group's established modus operandi. It is clear that Scattered Spider is continuing to broaden its attack surface and has increasingly targeted industries that handle large amounts of personal and financial data, as well as those that have intricate supply chains and third-party dependents that need to manage large amounts of sensitive data.
In late June of 2025, Scattered Spider demonstrated an even more dramatic strategic shift as it aggressively focused its efforts on the global aviation industry. In a matter of hours, what seemed like isolated and unconfirmed cyberattacks on a few airlines quickly escalated into a coordinated series of cyberattacks that had global repercussions.
A report issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed that the Scattered Spider was targeting major airline operators as well as the general public in an official advisory. This alert occurred at a time when two prominent Canadian carriers, WestJet, as well as Hawaiian Airlines, experienced disruptions caused by suspected cyberattacks, both of which experienced service interruptions as a result of these cyberattacks.
Additionally, Australia’s flagship airline, Qantas, also recently reported a significant security breach that was allegedly perpetrated by a third-party service provider. One of the systems compromised was the call centre platform used to handle customer service, highlighting a recurring pattern in Scattered Spider's operations: exploiting the weakest links in the supply chain to achieve its objectives.
Approximately 6 million Qantas passengers' sensitive data was accessed by hacker groups, including their full names, contact information, birth dates, and frequent flyer numbers, and was exposed in this manner. In spite of the fact that no financial or passport information was reported to have been taken, the breach underscores the dangers associated with third-party access points in highly interconnected environments.
A preliminary investigation into each of these three incidents revealed that the threat actors used a phone-based phishing technique that is commonly known as "vishing" in order to manipulate airline IT departments and contractors in all three incidents. It was aimed at obtaining VPN credentials and resetting Multi-factor authentication (MFA) security settings in order to impersonate internal employees and escalate privileges within corporate systems by impersonating internal employees.
Rather than relying on traditional technical exploits, Scattered Spider takes advantage of the trust placed in third-party vendors, such as those able to manage ticketing systems, call centres, and backend IT services. In addition to a deep understanding of aviation operations, Scattered Spider's tactical preference is to attack through a social engineering-based and identity-based attack vector rather than a traditional technical attack vector.
Scattered Spider has been evolving its operational sophistication, and its focus is increasingly on high-ranking executives, according to a recent report from security firm ReliaQuest. In an incident disclosed last Friday, a threat group infiltrated an unidentifiedorganisationn by targeting its Chief Financial Officer (CFO), who is a role that is generally granted access and authority to the organization.
As stated by ReliaQuest, the attackers conducted extensive reconnaissance to map the CFO's digital footprint before launching a highly targeted social engineering campaign to compromise the CFO's identity and credentials. The attackers succeeded in persuading staff members to reset the multi-factor authentication device linked to the account in order to start the intrusion process.
They impersonated the CFO and reached out to the IT help desk in order to convince them that their account could not be protected.
In the course of verifying their identity via the company's public login portal, they used previously collected information, including the CFO's birthdate and the last four digits of his Social Security Number, further legitimising their access.
As a result of their broad privileges and the high priority that their support requests receive, Scattered Spider strategically targets C-suite executives as a target due to their strategic use of these systems, allowing them to successfully impersonate C-suite executives.
With impressive speed and precision, the attackers were able to escalate privileges and move laterally across the organisation's infrastructure with remarkable speed and precision once inside the organisation by using the CFO's account.
In the post-compromise activity, it was evident that the group had an extensive understanding of enterprise environments. In order to identify privileged accounts, groups, and service principals, they initiated Entra ID enumeration to establish a platform for escalation and persistence of privileges.
Moreover, they performed a SharePoint discovery to determine where sensitive data was located and how business workflows worked, followed by compromising Horizon Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), which was accompanied by further account takeovers by social engineering.
In order to ensure that remote access would remain uninterrupted, Scattered Spider breached the organisation's VPN network infrastructure.
To access VMware's vCenter platform, the group reactivated and created new virtual machines that had been decommissioned. Using elevated access, they then compromised the CyberArk password vault, taking over 1,400 credentials. In addition to disabling a production domain controller, they also extracted the NTDS.dit database containing critical Active Directory information.
They used legitimate tools such as ngrok for persistent remote access to compromised accounts to firmly establish themselves in control of compromised accounts. When the attackers were discovered, they switched tactics, deploying a destructive "scorched-earth" attack — deleting entire policy rule collections from Azure Firewall as well as causing significant disruptions in operations.
It is clear from this incident that Scattered Spider is an incredibly adaptable and ruthless cybercriminal organisation, which reinforces its reputation as one of the most dangerous and unpredictable cybercriminals around today. In light of Scattered Spider's increasing activity and its increasingly tailored, identity-based attack strategies, organisations should reassess the security posture of their organisation beyond conventional perimeter defences and evaluate how resilient they are.
The threat vectors posed by this group continue to exploit human behaviour, trust-based processes, and fragmented digital ecosystems, which require defenders to adopt a proactive and intelligence-driven approach to threat detection and response. To accomplish this, robust identity verification workflows must be implemented for privileged access requests, behavioural analysis of high-value accounts must be conducted regularly, and third-party risk management policies should be strengthened.
Additionally, organisations need to ensure that cross-functional incident response plans are in place that take social engineering intrusions, privilege abuse scenarios, and other types of threat models into account-threat models that are no longer theoretical but operationally routine for adversaries such as Scattered Spider.
There is no doubt that cybercriminals are evolving with startup-like agility, and so defenders must also adapt to meet these demands. It is important to work collaboratively, share threat intelligence, and foster an organisational culture in which security is not just a technical function, but a core responsibility of the organisation.
Data loss is not the only issue that is at stake anymore-the stakes now include operational continuity, brand trust, and strategic resilience as well.
Rather than simply building technical defences to protect against threats such as Scattered Spider, organizations should cultivate a culture of security resilience and go beyond technical defenses.
The purpose of red team exercises that simulate identity-based attacks, aligning executive leadership, IT, and security teams around shared accountability, and conducting adversary emulation exercises to continuously validate security assumptions is all part of the process.
Keeping an organisation safe from attackers, regardless of the level of trust they exploit, requires vigilance across all levels of the organisation - strategic, operational, and human.
Organisations that have invested in adaptive, intelligence-driven defence programs are better equipped not only to withstand such threats, but also to recover quickly and decisively if they do occur.
It is no longer about building higher walls when it comes to cybersecurity—it is about outsmarting the intruders already at the gate with your help.
With Scattered Spider utilising surgical precision and manipulating human trust, hijacking identities, and exploiting operational vulnerabilities, organizations have to reconsider what resilience is really about. The era of static defenses has come to an end.
In order to respond to incident effectively, security teams need to implement adaptive strategies based on intelligence, behavior analytics, and proactive incident management.
In order to accomplish this, rigorous identity verification processes need to be implemented, privileged user behaviour needs to be continually monitored, and third-party integrations should be more tightly vetted—areas that are increasingly exploited by cybercriminals with startup-like agility. But resilience is more than just tools and tech.
A shared responsibility exists between executive leadership, IT, and security operations. Simulated red-team exercises that mimic real-world identity breaches are effective at exposing hidden vulnerabilities while adversary emulation challenges long-standing security assumptions. In the end, if people are going to defend themselves against adversaries such as Scattered Spider, they must adopt a defensive-in-depth philosophy where they integrate people, process, and technology.
Those companies that are committed to investing in continuous readiness—not just in the prevention of a disaster, but also in responding to one when it happens and recovering from it—will be better positioned to counter tomorrow's threats and emerge stronger from them.
