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Most Fraudulent Hires Receive Credentials Before Detection

HYPR report finds 42% of fraudulent hires pass screening and receive corporate credentials, averaging 5.73 days of unmonitored network access before detection.

A HYPR study of 500 US HR executives found 42% of fraudulent candidates pass pre-hire screening and get hired, with only 3% detected on their hire day and 20% remaining undetected up to three weeks. This gives fraudulent hires an average of 5.73 days of unmonitored corporate network access, and 98% of surveyed executives said they had experienced candidate fraud firsthand. The report follows a September 9 CISA update to its Insider Threat Mitigation Guide warning that malicious actors use AI tools to obtain remote IT jobs, a tactic long used by North Korean actors for data theft and extortion.

Phishing Attacks Abuse Trusted Email Infrastructure and URL Cloaking to Evade Security Filters

VBSpam Q3 2026 test shows phishers abusing DKIM-aligned domains, Amazon SES, and multi-stage URL cloaking to defeat email filters.

Virus Bulletin's Q3 2026 VBSpam test (AMTSO-LS1-TP207) found phishing campaigns moving payloads past the email itself via browser-fingerprinting gates, redirect chains, and hidden POST requests. Examples include a Dutch McAfee/TotalAV scareware renewal scam, a German overdue-payment Web3 fraud delivered via Amazon SES from DKIM-aligned moolaah.com, and Romanian BCR PSD2 credential phishing embedding IPv6-mapped URLs resolving to 103.193.179.223. Net at Work NoSpamProxy ranked first with a 99.995 score while open-source Rspamd caught only 62.55% of phishing mail.

GBHackers · 9h agoPhishing & fraud in the wild 2 sources

HBO Max Reddit account compromised to serve ClickFix attacks

Attackers hijacked HBO Max's verified Reddit account to run 108 ClickFix malvertising ads delivering infostealers, loaders, and crypto clippers to Windows and macOS users.

Attackers compromised the verified HBO Max Reddit account (u/hbomax) to push 108 malicious ads in a 48-hour malvertising blitz named PasteSwitch, analyzed by Hudson Rock and ADAMnetworks. The ClickFix lures directed victims to fake landing pages instructing them to paste commands into Terminal, delivering OS-targeted infostealers, malware loaders, and cryptocurrency clippers. Lures included 46 HBO Max ads, 36 fake OpenAI Codex ads, 15 fake macOS disk utilities, and 11 developer-tool ads. The AnimateClipper and ZigClipper payloads use Binance Smart Chain contracts as resilient C2 fallback, with 36 mainnet changes observed between March and July 2026; Reddit paused the ads three days after discovery and is investigating.

The Register · Securityupdated · 10h agofirst · 23h agoPhishing & fraud in the wild 7 sources

Search results are sending people to fake Bitrefill checkouts

Scam sites impersonating Bitrefill's crypto checkout appear in search results, tricking victims into sending up to $1,990 in crypto directly to scammers.

Malwarebytes documents a cluster of lookalike domains copying Bitrefill's gift card checkout, surfaced via search engine results rather than email. Victims choose an amount up to $1,990 and pay in Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDC, USDT, Solana, or Litecoin to scammer-controlled addresses, with no recourse since crypto payments are irreversible. Domains use typosquatting and Punycode/IDN homoglyph tricks, and the fake sites run commercial analytics software to measure and optimize victim conversion. Bitrefill's security team is working with takedown specialists to remove the sites.

Malwarebytes Labs · 13h agoPhishing & fraud