Search: “phishing-simulation”

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.

Cyber Security News·updated Sep 15, 13:04 UTC · 1d ago·first Sep 15, 12:02 UTC · 1d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild 2 sources

Abnormal AI expands email security from detection to data protection and phishing-simulation training

Abnormal AI expands its email security platform with Control Center, Email DLP Rules, and AI Phishing Coach upgrades for outbound protection and training.

Abnormal AI announced three new capabilities for its email security platform: Control Center for custom detection models and rules with decision transparency, Email DLP Rules combining regex and policy controls with an AI Triage Agent for outbound mail, and upgraded AI Phishing Coach for adaptive phishing simulations. Custom AI Models and Phishing Coach upgrades reach general availability on August 31, while Custom Rules and Email DLP Rules enter early access the same day. The launch positions Abnormal across inbound attacks, outbound data loss, and employee training.

Help Net Security·Aug 27, 00:00 UTC · 20d agoTools

Teach Yourself to Phish | Huntress

Huntress outlines the strategy behind phishing simulations to help organizations build resilience against real phishing threats.

Huntress published guidance on the strategy behind phishing simulation programs. The piece argues simulations should mirror real attacker behavior to train employees and measure organizational resilience. The content promotes Huntress's security awareness training offering.

Huntress·Aug 28, 16:00 UTC · 19d agoIndustry

New infosec products of the month: August 2026

August 2026 roundup of security product releases from ServiceNow, Tanium, Snyk, F5, A10, Searchlight Cyber, Intezer, NETSCOUT, Tufin, and Abnormal AI.

Help Net Security's monthly product roundup covers roughly a dozen vendors. Highlights include Snyk's general availability of Evo Continuous Offensive Security with AI-powered pentesting and AI agent red teaming, Searchlight Cyber's PTEM platform combining exposure visibility with attacker intelligence, and A10 and F5 AI gateways to govern enterprise LLM and agent usage. Other updates include Abnormal AI email DLP and phishing training, NETSCOUT outbound DDoS mitigation for service providers, Intezer's native Workflows automation, and Tufin's AI-powered Segmentation Intelligence.

Help Net Security·Aug 28, 00:00 UTC · 19d agoTools

A Beginner’s Guide to Phishing Simulation Training for Employees | Huntress

Huntress published a beginner's guide to phishing simulation training that simulates real phishing attacks to protect organizations.

Huntress released a beginner's guide to phishing simulation training for employees. The guide covers the essentials of simulating real phishing attacks to improve organizational security awareness. It serves as educational content tied to Huntress's training products.

Huntress·Aug 28, 16:00 UTC · 19d agoIndustry

Nebulon Enterprise Simulated Threats for Phishing Research (NEST-Phish): A Synthetic Enterprise Phishing Email Dataset for Behavioral and Machine-Learning Research

Researchers release NEST-Phish, a synthetic enterprise phishing email dataset with matched legitimate and phishing emails and cue annotations for detection research.

Academic researchers introduce NEST-Phish, a publicly released synthetic enterprise phishing email dataset built around a fictitious organization named Nebulon. It contains matched synthetic legitimate and phishing emails across a broad set of workplace communication themes, each with interpretable phishing-cue annotations. Human-subject categorizations and supervised classifier evaluations indicate the dataset supports meaningful variation in phishing judgments and provides learnable signal for detection models. It is intended to support work on phishing detection, human susceptibility, explainability, and benchmark development.

arXiv cs.CR·Sep 3, 20:58 UTC · 12d agoResearch

Phishing Research Challenges Conventional Security Awareness Testing

Pistachio's 2.47 million phishing simulations across 1,200 organizations show click rates alone mislead, with 30% of IT staff clicking and leak rates more predictive.

Between June 2025 and May 2026, Pistachio sent 2.47 million simulated phishing attempts to more than 123,000 employees at over 1,200 organizations, analyzing click, credential-leak and reporting behavior. Click rates ranged from 26% in Design to 41% in Construction; 30% of tech development and IT staff clicked at least once, while financial services were the most resilient sector. The report argues that click rate alone creates a false sense of security and that combined click, leak and report trends are better resilience indicators.

SecurityWeek·Sep 11, 17:23 UTC · 4d agoResearch

Def Con Attendees Targeted by Persistent Phishing Campaign

Huntress reports a persistent and elaborate phishing campaign targeting attendees following the Def Con security conference.

A Huntress researcher documented being targeted by an elaborate and persistent phishing scam after attending Def Con. The campaign specifically went after conference attendees, suggesting deliberate targeting of the security community. Details of the social engineering approach and persistence were shared.

Infosecurity Magazine·Aug 20, 09:30 UTC · 27d agoPhishing & fraud

Phishing 3.0: The Fight Moves to Agent Versus Agent

Agentic AI transforms phishing economics, enabling personalized multi-channel attacks with deepfakes like the $25M Arup deepfake heist.

The article argues phishing has evolved through three stages: from malicious content, to intent-based BEC, to AI-powered multi-channel campaigns where attacker agents autonomously conduct reconnaissance and generate tailored lures. The widely reported Arup case saw a deepfake video call impersonating colleagues convince an employee to approve transfers worth roughly $25 million. An Osterman Research study of 128 security leaders found 88% experienced trust-undermining incidents, while Microsoft 365 EOP and Google Workspace were measured missing hundreds of phishing messages per 100 mailboxes monthly. The author argues defenders must adopt their own agents to match attacker speed.

The Hacker News·Aug 19, 11:30 UTC · 28d agoPhishing & fraud2

ThreatsDay: CEO Phishing Kits, 5K Dropbox Account Hacks, OAuth Traps + 17 More Stories

Microsoft warns of Teams IT-impersonation intrusions deploying Node.js implants; Spring Ring vishing hit 150+ employees across 10 companies; The Gentlemen ransomware claims 683 victims.

Microsoft warned of a human-operated campaign abusing Teams external collaboration to impersonate IT help desk staff, deploy malicious MSI packages staging Node.js runtimes and obfuscated JavaScript implants, then pivot to domain controllers over WinRM. Unit 42 documented the Spring Ring vishing operation targeting over 150 employees across at least 10 companies using 26 attacker identities, including an NTLM relay variant against domain controllers. Sophos reported The Gentlemen ransomware (Gold Sherwood) reached 683 total victims by end of July 2026, adding 169 in July, with a playbook using BYOVD-based EDR killers and backup tampering. Group-IB found the Outsider phishing-as-a-service platform created 700+ new phishing pages within a month despite law enforcement takedowns.

The Hacker News·Sep 3, 18:02 UTC · 12d agoThreat actor in the wild1

Operation ASTERIX: Anatomy of a Crypto Fraud Pipeline

Rapid7 exposed infrastructure behind a cryptocurrency fraud pipeline using phishing panels, voice-dialing scripts, fake wallets, and AI coding assistants.

Rapid7 researchers identified an exposed web directory on infrastructure used to support a cryptocurrency fraud operation tracked as Operation ASTERIX. The server contained raw phone-number datasets, account-validation tools, enriched lead records, phishing panels, voice-dialing scripts, fake wallet applications, persistence mechanisms, and Telegram exfiltration code. Recovered prompts, shell history, and project files show the operator relied on AI coding assistants to package Electron applications, obfuscate code, troubleshoot builds, and modify phishing infrastructure.

Rapid7 Blog·Aug 17, 11:29 UTC · Aug 17, 2026Phishing & fraud

Engineered Persuasion: Evaluating Personalized Pretexts in LLM-Generated Spear Phishing

A study of 180 US workers found each LLM phishing personalization level raised click-intention odds by 28%, but credibility depends on context fit.

The arXiv paper evaluates how personalized pretexts in LLM-generated spear phishing affect perceived credibility, using 180 US working adults across 1,436 evaluations of emails with four cumulative personalization levels, from workplace context to shared-project details. Convincingness rose 2.40 points per level in sensitivity analysis and click-intention odds increased 28% per level, while non-clickers shifted toward deleting rather than reporting. Qualitative coding showed details matching the recipient's role and routines supported credibility, whereas incorrect, vague, or channel-inappropriate details raised suspicion. The authors argue personalization effectiveness depends on pretext fit, with implications for workplace security training.

arXiv cs.CR·Sep 3, 19:21 UTC · 12d agoResearch

How to Keep Malware’s Rotating Infrastructure From Becoming a Detection Gap

ANY.RUN marketing piece argues SOC detection lags rotating malware and phishing infrastructure, citing a 46-country campaign and 3DBlast kit to promote TI feeds.

ANY.RUN describes how malware and phishing campaigns rotate domains and hosting, making single-IOC blocking ineffective for SOC teams. One investigated phishing campaign spanned 46 countries with 425 kit URLs across 240 hosts, 94% of which were seen for only a single day. A phishing kit dubbed 3DBlast impersonates Microsoft 365 and Google using BitB, AiTM, OAuth device-code phishing and DOM relay techniques. The article is primarily a promotion for ANY.RUN TI Feeds and TI Lookup products.

Cyber Security News·Sep 15, 15:36 UTC · 1d agoIndustry

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·Sep 10, 16:00 UTC · 6d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild1

Dissecting the JWR phishing framework

Cisco Talos uncovered an undocumented phishing framework branded JWR that impersonates checkout and login pages of major payment and shopping platforms.

Cisco Talos researchers identified an undocumented phishing framework internally branded JWR by its developer. The framework is built to convincingly impersonate checkout and login pages across major payment and shopping platforms, likely to harvest credentials and payment details. Talos's analysis details the framework's infrastructure and impersonation capabilities, giving defenders indicators to detect campaigns using it.

Cisco Talos·Aug 13, 10:00 UTC · Aug 13, 2026Phishing & fraud

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.

The Hacker News·Sep 4, 15:57 UTC · 12d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

What’s the Scam?

Bruce Schneier reports AI-generated fake thank-you replies to his newsletter confirmations from throwaway Gmail accounts; the scam's goal is unclear.

Bruce Schneier describes receiving a burst of AI-generated, one-line praise emails replying to Crypto-Gram newsletter confirmation messages, sent from random-character Gmail addresses. None of the senders actually subscribed, and they did not respond when he replied, weakening a pig-butchering theory. The campaign appears automated, but its objective has not been identified.

Schneier on Security·Sep 1, 17:36 UTC · 14d agoPhishing & fraud

Phishers are hijacking legitimate cloud infrastructure

Kaspersky Securelist·Aug 4, 12:00 UTC · Aug 4, 2026Threat actor1

Next-Gen Phishing Tactics Users Aren’t Ready For | Huntress

Huntress details modern phishing tactics including ClickFix, browser-in-the-browser, and OAuth consent phishing beyond basic credential harvesting.

Huntress describes a shift in phishing attacks beyond basic credential harvesting toward advanced tactics. Covered techniques include ClickFix social engineering, browser-in-the-browser (BitB) attacks, and OAuth consent phishing. The post recommends training users on these patterns through Huntress SAT simulations.

Huntress·Aug 28, 16:00 UTC · 19d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild1

Cybercriminals are building phishing pages that exist only inside victims’ browsers

Barracuda details a DocuSign-themed phishing campaign that renders login pages locally via blob URLs, abusing genuine Microsoft OAuth and Teams infrastructure.

Barracuda researchers describe a phishing campaign that starts with DocuSign-themed emails carrying calendar invites pointing to genuine Microsoft OAuth endpoints, then routes victims through Microsoft Teams to a resource hosted on cdn.bloom[.]io. The login page is assembled entirely inside the victim's browser from a blob URL, registers a service worker, and runs inside a sandboxed iframe that receives live instructions from the attacker's backend. Hidden command-and-control configuration indicates the page is part of a centrally managed phishing platform that can be updated and steered across many victims. Barracuda recommends phishing-resistant MFA such as FIDO2 keys or passkeys, monitoring of OAuth flows and redirect chains, and behavior-based identity controls rather than URL blocklisting.

Help Net Security·updated Sep 10, 14:04 UTC · 6d ago·first Sep 10, 05:00 UTC · 6d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild 3 sources

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.

SecurityWeek·Sep 9, 10:00 UTC · 7d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

Spring Ring: An Inside Look at Voice Phishing Campaigns in Microsoft Teams

Unit 42 details the Spring Ring voice phishing campaign abusing Microsoft Teams to deploy malware and target enterprise domain controllers.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 analyzed the Spring Ring campaign, which abuses Microsoft Teams and voice phishing (vishing) to compromise enterprise users. Attackers use Teams calls to social-engineer victims, then deploy malware and advance toward enterprise domain controllers. The report documents the campaign's tactics and provides detection guidance for defenders.

Palo Alto Unit 42·Aug 31, 10:00 UTC · 16d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

Threat Actor Generates 1M Personalized Fraud Emails in 3 Days

Cybercriminals used AI to generate 1 million personalized fraud emails in three days, eliminating the traditional volume-versus-credibility tradeoff.

Dark Reading reports that a threat actor used AI to generate approximately 1 million personalized fraudulent emails within three days. The article highlights that AI now lets malicious email campaigns combine high volume with high credibility, removing a historic constraint on phishing operations. No specific gang, victim list, or tooling is named in the available text.

Dark Reading·Sep 11, 19:21 UTC · 4d agoPhishing & fraud in the wild

Fake Voicemail SVG Attachments Fuel Large-Scale Phishing Campaign

Large-scale phishing campaign used fake voicemail SVG attachments to evade email defenses, targeting 5,527 organizations with 26,000+ messages.

A large-scale phishing campaign distributed fake voicemail notifications as SVG attachments, a format that helps bypass many email security controls. The campaign targeted 5,527 organizations with more than 26,000 malicious messages, apparently aiming to lure recipients into credential-harvesting actions.

Infosecurity Magazine·Aug 28, 13:00 UTC · 19d agoPhishing & fraud

Fake Recruiter Scams Target Corporate Credentials on Mobile

RecruitTrap phishing campaigns use mobile-optimized fake recruiter pages to steal corporate credentials from enterprise targets.

RecruitTrap campaigns impersonate recruiters and direct victims to phishing pages optimized for mobile devices. The goal is harvesting corporate credentials from enterprise targets. The mobile-focused design suggests deliberate targeting of smartphone users, where phishing cues are harder to scrutinize.

Infosecurity Magazine·Aug 25, 13:00 UTC · 22d agoPhishing & fraud

Gut feeling does nothing against AI spear phishing texts

Help Net Security·Aug 7, 00:00 UTC · Aug 7, 2026Phishing & fraud

Post-DEF CON Phishing Uses Malicious Google Doc to Deliver Malware

Huntress uncovered post-DEF CON phishing via X direct messages using a malicious Google Doc to deliver AMOS and NetSupport RAT malware.

Huntress uncovered a phishing campaign targeting attendees after Black Hat and DEF CON. Attackers used X direct messages pointing to a malicious Google Doc as the delivery vehicle. Payloads include AMOS, a macOS infostealer, and the NetSupport RAT, among other malware.

Huntress·Aug 19, 13:00 UTC · 28d agoPhishing & fraud