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Showing posts with label phishing campaign. Show all posts

Okta Uncovers Vishing Campaign Using Fake Microsoft Entra ID Pages to Hijack Microsoft 365 Accounts

 

Okta has identified a sophisticated vishing campaign targeting organizations across multiple industries, where attackers attempt to steal Microsoft 365 credentials by directing victims to fraudulent Microsoft Entra ID login pages.

The campaign, which began in April, uses voice calls to persuade employees that they need to register a new passkey for their Microsoft account. Victims are then guided to convincing fake Microsoft Entra ID pages designed to capture their credentials.

The threat activity, tracked as O-UNC-066 and also referred to as CL-CRI-1147 or Pink, has primarily targeted organizations in the automotive, aviation, construction, food and beverage, healthcare, and technology sectors. The group's primary objective appears to be data extortion.

To support the campaign, the attackers have registered multiple domains containing the word "passkey" and created phishing pages that closely imitate Microsoft's legitimate passkey enrollment experience.

“It appears engineered to convince a targeted user they are in the process of enrolling a passkey with Microsoft, while the threat actor simultaneously registers their own passkey in the targeted user’s Microsoft account,” Okta says.

According to Okta, the fake Microsoft Entra ID login portals are customized for each intended victim through the phishing kit's backend. These pages incorporate authentic Microsoft branding and even load content directly from Microsoft's content delivery network to appear legitimate.

Unlike conventional phishing kits that automatically harvest usernames, passwords, MFA tokens, and session cookies, this toolkit relies on a manually operated PHP control panel. The attacker actively interacts with victims in real time, adjusting the phishing pages throughout the authentication process to accommodate different multi-factor authentication methods.

“It is likely that the threat actor uses the kit to take over the user account and trick the user into approving an attacker-initiated registration of a passkey,” Okta notes.

Throughout the attack sequence, the phishing pages conduct anti-analysis checks, collect usernames without redirecting users to federated identity providers, and prompt victims to enter their passwords. The attackers are believed to use these credentials immediately to access the targeted Microsoft account.

After the initial login, victims are shown a processing screen while the attacker determines which MFA method is enabled, such as SMS one-time passwords, time-based one-time passwords (TOTP), or push notifications, and modifies the phishing flow accordingly.

As part of the deception, victims are eventually redirected to a fake passkey registration page. There, they are instructed to save a recovery key generated from a list of attacker-controlled BIP-39 seed phrases before verifying the final word in the phrase.

“The phishing kit appears to prey on the lack of user familiarity with passkey authentication. In a real passkey registration ceremony, the user might expect a system dialog to register a passkey on their device. The passkey pages in this phishing kit appear to mimic this process without registering a passkey,” Okta notes.

Okta points out that BIP-39 seed phrases have no apparent role in Microsoft Entra passkey registration, suggesting that this step is merely a distraction while attackers secretly enroll their own passkeys into compromised accounts.

The company also highlighted that Microsoft automatically sends legitimate email notifications whenever a new passkey is registered. However, because the attackers complete the enrollment directly with Microsoft, they can assign the passkey an innocent-looking name, reducing the likelihood of raising suspicion.

“Any time a user enrolls a passkey with Microsoft, the owner of the compromised account receives a legitimate Microsoft email to notify them that a new passkey has been registered in their account. During an attack, the passkey was actually enrolled by the threat actor directly with Microsoft, and the threat actor is in a position to name the passkey with something the targeted user would view as benign,” Okta explains.

Phishing Campaign Targets Marketing Professionals Using Fake Job Interviews from Top Global Brands

 

A sophisticated phishing campaign is targeting marketing professionals by posing as recruiters from more than 30 globally recognized brands, including Adobe, Netflix, Coca-Cola, OpenAI, Adidas, and Marriott. The attackers aim to steal Google account credentials by luring victims into fake job interview processes.

According to cybersecurity intelligence and threat hunting company Team Cymru, the operation exploits legitimate cloud-based platforms such as PeopleForce, a human resources service, and domains linked to Salesforce Marketing Cloud before redirecting users to malicious websites. To make the scam appear authentic, the threat actors are also using the names and profile pictures of actual recruiters from the companies they impersonate.

Will Thomas, senior advisor at Team Cymru, investigated the campaign and found that the phishing emails present themselves as recruitment messages. As he noted, the emails appear to be from “a recruiter looking to hire people for marketing roles.”

The investigation revealed that attackers have registered at least 34 domains designed to mimic prominent organizations across multiple industries. These include airlines and travel companies such as American Airlines, Booking.com, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines; food and beverage giants Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Red Bull; fashion and luxury brands Adidas, Louis Vuitton, Sephora, and Levi’s; consulting and technology firms including Adobe, Aquent, ManpowerGroup, McKinsey & Company, and OpenAI; hospitality and marketing companies Marriott and Omnicom Group; as well as entertainment and sports brands like FIFA and Netflix.

Researchers found that the attackers rely on a technique known as nested redirects, where users are routed through several legitimate online services before ultimately reaching a fraudulent webpage. Although the phishing emails appear to originate from PeopleForce, the embedded links resolve to the exct[.]net domain, which is operated by Salesforce following its acquisition of ExactTarget, now known as Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

From there, victims are redirected through Wise Agent, a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform for real estate professionals, before arriving at the phishing website.

BleepingComputer reported that the campaign has been active for at least five months. Earlier versions reportedly used Outlook email addresses carrying the names of the companies being impersonated.

In one example, a phishing email claiming to be from Adidas recruiter Paulina Manzo invited recipients to schedule a discussion regarding a potential job opportunity. Clicking the scheduling link redirected users to the fraudulent domain adidas-hiring[.]com.

To proceed with booking the interview, victims are instructed to sign in with their Google accounts. Selecting the “Continue with Google” option launches what appears to be a genuine Google authentication window. However, the pop-up is actually created using HTML and CSS within the phishing page itself, a deception technique known as browser-in-the-browser (BitB).

By leveraging modern web development methods, attackers can closely replicate legitimate authentication prompts, making it difficult for users to distinguish fake login windows from real ones.

Researchers emphasized that the misuse of legitimate platforms does not necessarily indicate those services have been compromised. Instead, threat actors may have created valid accounts specifically for the campaign or used compromised credentials to configure redirect chains and phishing pages.

A complete list of the malicious domains associated with the campaign has been published in Will Thomas' GitHub analysis.

Phishing Campaign Targets Marketing Professionals Using Fake Job Interviews from Top Global Brands

 

A sophisticated phishing campaign is targeting marketing professionals by posing as recruiters from more than 30 globally recognized brands, including Adobe, Netflix, Coca-Cola, OpenAI, Adidas, and Marriott. The attackers aim to steal Google account credentials by luring victims into fake job interview processes.

According to cybersecurity intelligence and threat hunting company Team Cymru, the operation exploits legitimate cloud-based platforms such as PeopleForce, a human resources service, and domains linked to Salesforce Marketing Cloud before redirecting users to malicious websites. To make the scam appear authentic, the threat actors are also using the names and profile pictures of actual recruiters from the companies they impersonate.

Will Thomas, senior advisor at Team Cymru, investigated the campaign and found that the phishing emails present themselves as recruitment messages. As he noted, the emails appear to be from “a recruiter looking to hire people for marketing roles.”

The investigation revealed that attackers have registered at least 34 domains designed to mimic prominent organizations across multiple industries. These include airlines and travel companies such as American Airlines, Booking.com, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines; food and beverage giants Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Red Bull; fashion and luxury brands Adidas, Louis Vuitton, Sephora, and Levi’s; consulting and technology firms including Adobe, Aquent, ManpowerGroup, McKinsey & Company, and OpenAI; hospitality and marketing companies Marriott and Omnicom Group; as well as entertainment and sports brands like FIFA and Netflix.

Researchers found that the attackers rely on a technique known as nested redirects, where users are routed through several legitimate online services before ultimately reaching a fraudulent webpage. Although the phishing emails appear to originate from PeopleForce, the embedded links resolve to the exct[.]net domain, which is operated by Salesforce following its acquisition of ExactTarget, now known as Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

From there, victims are redirected through Wise Agent, a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform for real estate professionals, before arriving at the phishing website.

BleepingComputer reported that the campaign has been active for at least five months. Earlier versions reportedly used Outlook email addresses carrying the names of the companies being impersonated.

In one example, a phishing email claiming to be from Adidas recruiter Paulina Manzo invited recipients to schedule a discussion regarding a potential job opportunity. Clicking the scheduling link redirected users to the fraudulent domain adidas-hiring[.]com.

To proceed with booking the interview, victims are instructed to sign in with their Google accounts. Selecting the “Continue with Google” option launches what appears to be a genuine Google authentication window. However, the pop-up is actually created using HTML and CSS within the phishing page itself, a deception technique known as browser-in-the-browser (BitB).

By leveraging modern web development methods, attackers can closely replicate legitimate authentication prompts, making it difficult for users to distinguish fake login windows from real ones.

Researchers emphasized that the misuse of legitimate platforms does not necessarily indicate those services have been compromised. Instead, threat actors may have created valid accounts specifically for the campaign or used compromised credentials to configure redirect chains and phishing pages.

A complete list of the malicious domains associated with the campaign has been published in Will Thomas' GitHub analysis.