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24 stories in the last 30d

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 · 2d agoPhishing & fraud

Hacked Thai College Website Abused to Redirect Google Searchers to Illegal Online Casinonew

ADEX uncovered a hacked Thai college domain serving casino pages through real Google search redirects, part of a global campaign compromising government and education sites.

Anti-fraud platform ADEX found a casino-themed page planted on the compromised km.chpc.ac.th domain in Thailand's educational .ac.th zone, which Google indexed and ranked first to redirect users to illegal online gambling. The scheme achieved full ad cloaking without deploying any cloaking code by chaining a genuine Google results page and a third-party redirect. The same domain-borrowing tactic is tracked globally: Thailand reports roughly 30 million gambling URLs across about 1,000 public-sector sites, Indonesia blocked 683 government and education sites, and Netcraft found an underground market selling access to more than 15,000 compromised .gov, .edu and ccTLD domains. ADEX argues Google's site reputation abuse policy does not cover institutions that are hijacked without their knowledge.

Cyber Security News · 24m agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

How Threat Actors Are Turning Trusted AI Platforms Into an Attack Surface

Huntress details campaigns abusing Claude Artifacts, claude.ai/share links, and ChatGPT/Grok conversations to deliver SectopRAT, MacSync, and AMOS stealers.

Huntress SOC documented nine months of campaigns in which attackers weaponized trusted AI platform features—Claude Artifacts, public claude.ai/share links, and indexable ChatGPT/Grok conversations—to deliver malware. The July FakeAgent campaign hit more than 29 organizations via a malicious Claude Artifact posing as a Claude Desktop download page that redirected to SectopRAT. A claude.ai/share link disguised as an Apple Support guide tricked a victim into running a curl command that deployed the MacSync stealer, harvesting cookies, credentials, keychain secrets, Telegram sessions, and SSH/cloud keys, while SEO-poisoned ChatGPT and Grok conversations delivered the AMOS stealer via ClickFix-style instructions.

BleepingComputer · 5d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild1

Fake bank websites play dead to evade security scanners

Fortra uncovered Chameleon SEO Poisoning: cloaked typosquat bank sites rank on Google and Bing to steal credentials while evading scanners, with cases up 40% in Q2 2026.

Fortra's threat intelligence unit FIRE spent three months tracking Chameleon SEO Poisoning, a phishing method that ranks recently registered typosquat domains on second-level domains like .ph.com and .gr.com above legitimate bank sites on Google and Bing. The technique uses presentation control (cloaking by referrer): direct visits get a dead, offline-looking page, while search-referred clicks receive a convincing fake bank login page, letting poisoned results persist for days or weeks. Fortra recorded a 40% jump in cases during the second quarter of 2026 and recommends referrer-spoofed URL testing, faster SLD takedowns, and bookmarking bank logins.

Help Net Security · 24d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

Risky Bulletin: Ukraine's top prosecutor resigns amid scam call center scandal

Ukraine's top prosecutor Ruslan Kravchenko resigned after NABU arrested a deputy for taking bribes protecting scam call centers running fake investment platforms.

Ukraine's anti-corruption bureau NABU arrested Serhiy Kropyva, Deputy Head of International Cooperation at the Prosecutor General's Office, alleging officials took monthly protection fees from a network of 100-500 scam call centers luring victims into fake investment platforms, with bribes reportedly growing from $700,000 to $3.5 million per month. Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko resigned on Monday, calling it a political decision, while Kropyva was fired with bail set at 120 million hryvnias ($2.7 million) and over 100 call centers shut down in the past month. The newsletter also briefly covers a cyberattack crippling more than 80 Luxembourg medical practices via payment vendor BMS Engineering, ShinyHunters' claimed theft of 200,000 Florida DMV driver records, a cyberattack on the American Meteor Society, and school closures in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Risky Business News · 8d agoPhishing & fraud

Tech support scams look different now. Here’s what to watch for

Malwarebytes warns tech support scammers now abuse sponsored search results, fake listings, calendar invites, and Apple Pay notifications, and shares red flags for impersonation scams.

Malwarebytes describes how tech support scams have expanded beyond browser locks and fake virus warnings to sponsored search results, hijacked on-site searches, fake platform listings, renewal scams, fake calendar invites, and Apple Pay notifications. Scammers impersonate trusted security companies including Malwarebytes, seeking payment, personal information, or remote access to victims' computers. Malwarebytes notes it does not outsource support, never makes unsolicited calls, and works with the FTC and the Global Anti-Scam Alliance to combat these scams.

Malwarebytes Labs · 14d agoPhishing & fraud1

Deceptive Android Apps Exploit Google Play Early Access to Evade Reviews

Bitdefender reports deceptive Google Play Early Access apps use deepfake celebrity ads and fake rewards to lure users into ad-fraud schemes.

Bitdefender research describes widespread abuse of Google Play's Early Access program, where developers publish deceptive apps that avoid public ratings and reviews. The apps are promoted through TikTok and Facebook ads promising cash rewards, PayPal payouts, crypto earnings, or gift cards, often using deepfakes of celebrities, but users receive only aggressive advertising. Examples include 'Chicken Road' and 'Ice Fishing' casino-style games plus trademark abuse such as apps named 'Grand Theft Auto V (Early Access)' that are later renamed. No malware is delivered, but some listings show thousands of installs.

SecurityWeek · 7d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

Hackers Use Passkey-Themed Phishing to Hijack Microsoft 365 Accounts and Steal Cloud Data

Microsoft reports passkey-themed phishing campaigns hijacking Microsoft 365 accounts via AiTM and device-code flows, then exfiltrating cloud data.

Microsoft researchers identified passkey-themed phishing across cloud intrusions observed since May 2026, where callers posing as IT support direct victims to lookalike sign-in pages. The flows include adversary-in-the-middle phishing and device-code authentication, letting attackers capture usable sessions even when MFA succeeds, followed by rogue MFA registration for persistence. Attackers enumerate tenants via Microsoft Graph and collect SharePoint, OneDrive, and Exchange data at rates below 1,000 items per hour; lure domains include passkeyhelpdesk.com and setupmypasskey.com.

Cyber Security News · 7d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild 2 sources2

More than 100,000 fake stores are out to steal your card details

Researchers uncovered DoppelCart, a network of roughly 119,000 cloned fake shops that harvest card details and one-time bank codes during checkout.

Researchers at German firm Nebty identified 118,787 .shop domains tied to cloned online stores, representing 2.72% of the TLD population examined and described as the largest publicly documented fake-shop network by domain count. The shops mimic more than 44,000 brands, advertise discounts up to 65%, and 96% of confirmed shops reportedly share identical build files using just 27 ecommerce backends. Fraudulent checkout pages send card numbers, CVVs, billing data and bank one-time confirmation codes to attacker-controlled servers in real time over WebSockets, allowing criminals to complete payments while victims are still checking out.

Malwarebytes Labs · 7d agoPhishing & fraud

Phishing Powers 80% of Attacks on US Companies: How SOCs Can Detect It Early

Phishing drives 80% of attacks on US companies; FBI recorded 158,436 BEC victims and over $20B in losses from 2013-2023.

A vendor-authored analysis claims phishing powers roughly 80% of attacks on US companies, citing FBI statistics of 158,436 business email compromise victims and more than $20 billion in reported losses between 2013 and 2023. It describes modern phishing using compromised infrastructure, redirect chains, dynamic pages, and adversary-in-the-middle techniques, including a recent campaign targeting tens of thousands of primarily US users. The piece promotes ANY.RUN Threat Intelligence Feeds and TI Reports, claiming 99% unique high-confidence IOCs, 21-minute faster MTTR, and 30% fewer Tier 2 escalations.

Cyber Security News · 8d agoPhishing & fraud

Risky Bulletin: BEC campaign steals €35 million from French notaries

Hackers stole over €35 million from 500+ French notary offices in a four-year BEC campaign; ANSSI spent two years helping evict the attackers.

A business email compromise campaign breached more than 500 French notary offices — about 7% of all French notaries per the Conseil Supérieur du Notariat — over four years, stealing more than €35 million by phishing initial access and silently modifying wire transfer details. France's cybersecurity agency ANSSI worked for two years behind the scenes to help notaries remove the persistent attackers, who had deep access; officials also feared hackers could issue fake notarized acts such as marriage certificates or forged real estate deals. No forged documents have been found so far, but notaries have added two-factor authentication and in-person requirements for banking details, and banks added extra checks in 2024. The newsletter also notes other incidents, including a $320 million Bitcoin extraction from Blockstream's Liquid Network and a JetBrains Cadence breach via TeamCity servers.

Risky Business News · 10d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild1

North Korean remote workers are broadening their job hunt beyond IT

Huntress links suspected North Korean remote workers to sales, marketing, and healthcare jobs using stolen identities, VPNs, proxies, and KVM hardware.

Huntress investigations identified suspected DPRK remote workers hired beyond IT in sales, marketing, and healthcare/financial organizations, sometimes actually performing the work they were hired for. Fraudulent documents included passports from the same city issued one day apart, ID cards with identical validity dates, and electricity bills built from the same online template with matching typos. A financial-services case found a PiKVM and Guermok USB capture card on a new hire's laptop within hours of delivery, suggesting a laptop farm, and another hire used a police mugshot with the photo digitally swapped. Researchers urge rigorous background checks and identity verification at the interview stage.

Help Net Security · 20d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

A $25 template helped scammers build hundreds of phantom bank domains

Allure Security researchers found 838 live phantom bank sites sharing a $25 template, built to lend credibility to investment and romance scams.

Allure Security researchers discovered roughly 2,200 domains presenting invented banks, of which 1,095 returned working pages and 838 contained a shared phrase. 97% of those retained parts of the $25 Cuex front-end template and 94% ran Laravel, with a misspelled 'Curreny Charts' heading on 90% of sites. The sites presented login pages, session cookies, and anti-forgery tokens consistent with a fraud model where scam contacts direct victims to fake financial portals. A leftover 'Remedy bank' title and form submission to remedycodes[.]site linked some sites to already-flagged fraud infrastructure.

Help Net Security · 27d agoPhishing & fraud1

A fake ChatGPT billing email is after your OpenAI password

Cofense reports a fake ChatGPT billing email harvesting OpenAI credentials via a Google redirect to a spoofed login page.

Cofense's Phishing Defense Center traced a fake ChatGPT billing email, sent from support@9527db6e1a[.]nxcli[.]io, claiming a $23.80 overdue balance and a 48-hour deadline before account suspension. The 'Update Payment Information' button routes through a notifications[.]googleapis[.]com redirect to a spoofed OpenAI login page that captures credentials and sends victims to an error page. Cofense published indicators including the Google redirect link plus login.php and key.php paths on the nxcli[.]io host.

Help Net Security · 56m agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

The sexy AI-powered dating app scams are here

Anthropic exposed a network of roughly 28 AI-driven dating apps using autonomous personas and gig workers to defraud paying users.

Anthropic threat intelligence uncovered a fraud network of around 28 dating apps after a prepaid account sent over 100,000 Claude API requests daily, with most chats run by autonomous AI personas and no human agent. Researchers Matthew Gore-Kormanik and Anthropic's Chris Cronbaugh documented apps including Dora, Romi, and Doni, which monetize conversations via coins; gig workers were hired only to pass liveness checks and select pregenerated replies. An operations manual written in Chinese was found inside the Doni app, and Anthropic published findings in its September 2026 AI misuse report.

The Verge · AI · 23h agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

ClickFix attacks are tricking Mac and Windows users into hacking themselves

ClickFix campaigns trick users into pasting terminal commands via fake CAPTCHAs; latest wave abused HBO Max's hacked Reddit account to push infostealer ads.

ClickFix attacks use fake CAPTCHA or anti-bot prompts on hacked or counterfeit websites to convince victims to copy a command into Windows Command Prompt or macOS Terminal, instantly installing infostealers that steal passwords, logged-in sessions, and crypto wallets. The latest campaign compromised HBO Max's official Reddit account to post hundreds of fake ads linking to a spoofed HBO Max page carrying the lure, per researchers at Hudson Rock. It is unclear how many users were compromised. Because execution happens in the terminal, many attacks evade antivirus tools; enterprises can block terminals domain-wide and Mac users can deploy BlockBlock.

TechCrunch · Security · 2d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild1

Passkey-themed phishing attacks lead to Microsoft 365 data theft

Microsoft links ShinyHunters- and Helix-affiliated actors to passkey-themed vishing and device-code phishing that compromises Microsoft 365 accounts and steals cloud data.

Microsoft attributes passkey- and SSO-themed social engineering activity, observed since May 2026, to Storm-3121 (linked to ShinyHunters and Falcon) and Storm-3032 (tied to BlackFile members now operating as Helix). Attackers impersonate corporate IT help desks by phone or SMS, urging fake passkey, MFA, or SSO updates and directing victims to adversary-in-the-middle phishing pages or device-code authentication flows that yield credentials, session tokens, and OAuth tokens. Post-compromise behavior includes Microsoft Graph enumeration of users, SharePoint, and OAuth grants, plus persistence via attacker-controlled MFA methods. Google Threat Intelligence tracks related activity as UNC6671, linked to the BlackFile, Helix, Falcon, Pink, and Redact extortion gangs.

BleepingComputer · 5d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild 4 sources3

ClickFix attacks infecting PCs and Macs are going viral

ClickFix social engineering attacks are spreading widely, delivering malware to Windows and macOS users by tricking them into running malicious terminal commands that bypass Gatekeeper.

BlueVoyant reports the Lorem Ipsum malware operation pivoted to ClickFix in late May 2026, dropping code-signing infrastructure and broadening its victim pool from Microsoft Teams searchers to anyone browsing a compromised website. Jamf and independent researchers documented macOS ClickFix variants that bypass Gatekeeper protections. Cisco Talos observed attackers abusing published Google Sheets for control traffic, while Netskope counted 5,400 sites beaconing to one campaign; Sandworm has separately hosted control infrastructure in blockchain smart contracts.

Ars Technica · Security · 6d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild1

Detect and disrupt AI-themed attacks with Microsoft Defender

Microsoft Threat Intelligence reports criminal campaigns impersonating ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude, and DeepSeek in phishing, AiTM, and malvertising attacks reaching 100,000 emails daily.

Microsoft Threat Intelligence observed a growing set of campaigns that abuse trust in popular AI brands: a ChatGPT-themed phishing campaign sent up to 100,000 emails in one day to steal payment card data, and a Claude-themed campaign used adversary-in-the-middle techniques to harvest credentials and access tokens. Other campaigns included malvertising for a fake AI Windows plugin delivering the Vidar stealer and fraudulent DeepSeek installers distributed via GitHub. Initial access broker Storm-3075 used AI-themed malvertising to distribute payloads for multiple downstream actors, and Microsoft notes the AI services themselves were not compromised. Microsoft also details Defender protections such as Safe Links, Safe Attachments, and attack disruption against these multi-stage lures.

Microsoft Security Blog · 6d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild1

IT Help Desk Impersonation Lets Hackers Bypass MFA

Arctic Wolf tracks PREY-0058 posing as IT help desk to steal Microsoft 365 sessions via AiTM panels, then extorting executives after SaaS data theft.

Arctic Wolf documented a threat cluster tracked as PREY-0058 that impersonates internal IT help desk staff by phone, luring Directors, VPs, and executives to authentication-themed URLs formatted as victim-organization lure domains. Adversary-in-the-middle panels intercept credentials and MFA approvals, and stolen sessions are replayed through residential proxies such as NodeMaven from IPs matching the victim's geo-location and ASN, defeating impossible-travel alerts. Attackers perform discovery against SharePoint and Entra ID, then harvest data from OneDrive, Exchange, and Box before issuing extortion demands. Defenders are advised to require managed devices, use phishing-resistant MFA like FIDO2, enable Continuous Access Evaluation, and monitor sign-ins, SharePoint SearchQueryPerformed, and MailItemsAccessed events.

Security Affairs · 9d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild1

Inside Knight Office, a New M365 AiTM Phishing Kit

Huntress details Knight Office, a new AiTM phishing kit stealing Microsoft 365 session tokens and registering attacker-controlled devices.

Huntress investigated an August 18, 2026 adversary-in-the-middle attack using the Knight Office phishing kit, which captured Microsoft 365 session tokens via a DocuSign-style lure routed through a Monday.com tracking link and a compromised Joomla site. After token capture, the actor enrolled an unauthorized host in Microsoft Entra ID and bound a Windows Hello for Business key credential to the account. The kit's operator console, found at IP 104.37.188.94, is built on Python Flask and hosts at least 25 .vu phishing domains. Telemetry links the kit to at least nine token-replay logins in two weeks and roughly 700 reported lure emails since April.

Huntress · 15d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild1

Scammers are getting smarter about where they target you

Malwarebytes data shows scammers tailor fraud by platform: 90% of toll scams arrive via email/SMS and MrBeast is now the most impersonated person.

Malwarebytes threat research analyzed global scam data from April 15 to July 14, 2026, across more than 20 scam types, finding each type favors a specific channel such as email, SMS, phone, or social media. Roughly nine in ten toll scams arrive by email or text, about half of IRS scams come by phone, and MrBeast is impersonated in about 30% of impersonation scams. The most impersonated brands are Google, Microsoft, Apple, Roblox, and Amazon, and Malwarebytes blocks around 500,000 phishing websites daily. Gaming scams on Roblox, Steam, Discord, and Minecraft increasingly carry losses of $1,000 or more, with 15-19% activity spikes in mid-2026.

Malwarebytes Labs · 15d agoPhishing & fraud

TerminalFix Uses Fake Cloudflare CAPTCHAs to Deploy Reverse

Microsoft details TerminalFix, a ClickFix variant using fake Cloudflare CAPTCHAs to make users run PowerShell payloads with reverse-tunnel implants.

Microsoft disclosed TerminalFix campaigns that direct users to run commands in Windows Terminal or PowerShell instead of the Run dialog, increasing the chance multi-line scripts execute. Compromised websites serve fake Cloudflare CAPTCHA verifications; the resulting PowerShell command downloads a ZIP with legitimate LockScreenContentServer.exe and rogue dui70.dll for DLL sideloading, retrieves payloads hidden in PNG images from attacker domains, persists via Registry Run keys and scheduled tasks, and performs domain trust and Active Directory reconnaissance. A Python-based reverse-tunnel implant (client.py) tunnels arbitrary TCP traffic over an encrypted WebSocket to gitnow[.]dev:443, giving attackers network-level proxy access that could enable privilege escalation, security-tool tampering, data theft or ransomware. Microsoft recommends AppLocker restrictions, PowerShell script block logging and ClickFix awareness training.

The Hacker News · 18d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild1

AnonyMousKIT phishing-as-a-service uses AI voice calls to steal iPhone passcodes

SOCRadar details AnonyMousKIT, an active phishing-as-a-service platform using AI voice agents across 506 domains to steal Apple ID credentials from stolen iPhone owners.

SOCRadar analyzed AnonyMousKIT, a pay-per-action phishing-as-a-service platform built to harvest Apple ID credentials needed to remove Activation Lock from stolen iPhones. A bare-relative-paths flaw exposed a reseller supply chain of 506 domains and 168 storefront brands active since early 2024, plus 200 call logs and 55 transcripts, with 179 of 200 calls going to Brazil at a total cost of $19.24. Voice-agent personas like 'Alice Dias, Apple Support' convince victims to dictate their four- or six-digit passcode and enter an unlock code from a security link, allowing thieves to remove Activation Lock and resell devices. The platform ran five personas in English, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese and remained active at the end of the investigation.

Help Net Security · 22d agoPhishing & fraud