New Phishing Attacks Use Trusted Email Infrastructure and URL Cloaking to Bypass Security Tools
Virus Bulletin Q3 2026 report details phishing using DKIM-aligned senders, Amazon SES delivery, and real-time URL cloaking to evade email security and scanners.
Virus Bulletin's Q3 2026 testing found phishing campaigns delivered through trusted infrastructure like Amazon SES with DKIM-aligned sender domains. Samples included a German overdue-invoice lure redirecting to OpenSea crypto fraud and a Romanian BCR-branded PSD2 banking credential-theft campaign. Cloaking pages used hidden iframes, browser fingerprinting, and time-zone checks to show different content to scanners versus victims. Defenders are urged to inspect full redirect chains rather than attachments or initial URLs alone.
Phishing Campaign Sends Millions of Emails Using Invisible Unicode to Evade Filters
Microsoft warns of a high-volume phishing campaign using invisible Unicode characters to split keywords like 'funding' and evade filters, peaking at 2.37 million daily messages.
Microsoft's Security Research team documented a high-volume phishing operation inserting deprecated Unicode Tags characters (U+E0000-U+E007F) inside financial keywords such as 'funding' so literal-string and regex email filters stop matching them. The campaign ran on a weekly cadence with 1-2.37 million weekday messages between February and May 15, 2026, peaking on February 26, 2026. It used hundreds of disposable finance-themed sender domains and relayed mail through ActiveCampaign's click-tracking infrastructure (acemlnd[.]com, activehosted[.]com), lending legitimate platform reputation. Microsoft ties the activity to an AI-assisted SBA loan phishing campaign that Fortra's FIRE team disclosed in September 2025.
New Phishing Attack Creates Malicious Pages Inside the Victim’s Browser
Barracuda details a phishing campaign that renders pages in-browser via blob URLs, routed through Microsoft Teams and cdn.bloom[.]io to evade detection.
Barracuda researchers analyzed a phishing campaign that generates a blob URL to render the phishing page entirely inside the victim's browser, leaving no static page for scanners to inspect. The chain begins with a Docusign-themed email containing a calendar invite, followed by a crafted redirect through Microsoft Teams to a resource on cdn.bloom[.]io that the browser converts into the blob URL. Service workers, iframes, and a hidden command-and-control configuration indicate the page is part of a centrally managed phishing platform that can be updated and steered across victims. Researchers recommend inspecting blob URL activity, monitoring OAuth authorization flows, and analyzing the full click path in email security controls.