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.
Hackers Use AI-Assisted CEO Emails to Trick Finance Teams Into Sending $50,000 Payments.
Microsoft tracked a million-message AI-assisted BEC campaign impersonating executives with fake ServiceNow invoices to steal ~$50,000 ACH payments.
Microsoft detected over one million messages in a BEC campaign running August 3-5, using AI-assisted phishing templates, executive impersonation, and fabricated ServiceNow subscription invoices to trick finance teams into authorizing fraudulent ACH payments of roughly $50,000. The US received 87.7% of volume. Attackers used lookalike domains like service-nowinc[.]com registered just days before delivery, with no compromise of ServiceNow itself. Telltale signs included verbose HTML comments, uniform formatting, and inconsistent forwarded-message headers.
NovaCookies Campaigns Abuse Genuine Docusign Notifications to Steal Microsoft 365 Sessions
NovaCookies AitM phishing kit, a Sneaky 2FA variant, uses genuine Docusign lures to steal Microsoft 365 sessions at hundreds of organizations.
Island disclosed NovaCookies, a $320/month adversary-in-the-middle phishing-as-a-service platform that relays Microsoft 365 sign-ins through attacker infrastructure to capture credentials, MFA codes, and authenticated sessions. Campaigns abuse genuine Docusign envelopes and Microsoft/Google redirect hops so each step looks legitimate, with lure domains on .vu and alternating-case labels such as PwPt-sHaRe. Proofpoint assesses NovaCookies as a Sneaky 2FA variant with added flows for Okta and Entra domains federated to GoDaddy, and a fully managed PhaaS model. It has targeted hundreds of organizations in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Germany, Israel, and the U.A.E., and is advertised via Telegram with anti-analysis checks like a Cloudflare gate.
Fake Apple Support AI Calls Target Stolen-Device Owners for Passcodes and 2FA Codes
SOCRadar details AnonyMousKIT, a phishing-as-a-service platform using AI voice agents posing as Apple Support to steal passcodes and 2FA codes.
SOCRadar's Threat Research Unit documented AnonyMousKIT, a credit-metered phishing-as-a-service platform that strips Activation Lock from stolen Apple devices across email, SMS, WhatsApp, recorded calls and AI voice agents. The 'Alice from Apple Support' personas request the device passcode, Apple ID credentials and a live 2FA code, with lures citing the handset's model identifier and live Find My status. Of 200 recovered AI calls made between August 31, 2025 and May 30, 2026, 179 targeted Brazil, and the calls cost $19.24 total via voice platform Vapi. Exposed log paths revealed 30 kit installations on 42 domains and 6,092 send attempts family-wide between March and July 2026.
ApateWeb: An Evasive Large-Scale Scareware and PUP Delivery Campaign
Unit 42 uncovers ApateWeb, a campaign using over 130,000 domains and multilayered redirects to deliver scareware, adware and PUPs to millions of users.
Unit 42 discovered ApateWeb, a large-scale campaign using a network of more than 130,000 domains to deliver scareware, potentially unwanted programs, adware including a rogue browser and browser extensions, and scam pages. The campaign uses a three-layer structure with deceptive emails as the entry point, centralized victim tracking via UUIDs, intermediate adware or anti-bot redirections, and evasion tactics such as cloaking, bot detection error pages, and wildcard DNS abuse. Activity spiked since August 2022, with several hundred attacker-controlled sites remaining in Tranco's top 1 million rankings and millions of monthly hits; Unit 42 blocked an estimated 3.5 million sessions across 74,711 devices in November 2023.