Phishing Emails Found in Environments Protected by Secure Email Gateways (SEGs)

Every week we update this page with a selection of the latest threats our analysts discover in environments protected by Proofpoint and other SEGs. These threat feeds can inform your security teams and help protect your business from malware-bearing phish.

One hundred percent of the phish seen by the Cofense Phishing Defense Center (PDC) have been found in environments under SEG (secure email gateway) protection, were reported by users, and were analyzed and dispositioned by Cofense Triage.

Cofense solutions enable organizations to identify, analyze and quarantine email threats in minutes.

Are phishing emails evading your Proofpoint or other secure email gateway? The following are examples of phishing emails recently seen by the PDC in technology-protected environments.

Malicious emails continue to reach user inboxes, increasing the risk of account compromise, data breach, ransomware attack and more. The same patterns and techniques are used and observed week after week. Get real-world ransomware attack email examples here and learn how to protect yourself.

Filter by SEG

SEG

Tactic

Theme

Real Phishing Example: Notification-themed emails found in environments protected by Microsoft ATP deliver a password protected .zip archive via an attached HTML file. The archive contains an .img file which contain a QakBot .dll and a .lnk file which is used to run the .dll.

ENVIRONMENTS: Microsoft Defender for O365

TYPE: QakBot

POSTED ON: 12/14/2022

TACTIC: HTML Attachment

THEME: Notification

PHISHING EXAMPLE DESCRIPTION: Notification-themed emails found in environments protected by Microsoft ATP deliver a password protected .zip archive via an attached HTML file. The archive contains an .img file which contain a QakBot .dll and a .lnk file which is used to run the .dll.

Real Phishing Example: Finance-themed emails found in environments protected by Proofpoint deliver Credential Phishing via an HTML attachment.

ENVIRONMENTS: Proofpoint

TYPE: Credential Phishing

POSTED ON: 12/12/2022

TACTIC: HTML Attachment

THEME: Finance

PHISHING EXAMPLE DESCRIPTION: Finance-themed emails found in environments protected by Proofpoint deliver Credential Phishing via an HTML attachment.

Real Phishing Example: DKB-spoofing emails found in environments protected by Proofpoint and Cisco Ironport deliver Credential Phishing via an embedded URL.

ENVIRONMENTS: Proofpoint

TYPE: Credential Phishing

POSTED ON: 12/08/2022

TACTIC: Link

THEME: DKB-spoofing emails

PHISHING EXAMPLE DESCRIPTION: DKB-spoofing emails found in environments protected by Proofpoint and Cisco Ironport deliver Credential Phishing via an embedded URL.

Real Phishing Example: Finance-themed emails found in environments protected by Mimecast and Microsoft ATP deliver BEC.

ENVIRONMENTS: Microsoft Defender for O365

TYPE: BEC

POSTED ON: 12/05/2022

TACTIC: BEC

THEME: Finance

PHISHING EXAMPLE DESCRIPTION: Finance-themed emails found in environments protected by Mimecast and Microsoft ATP deliver BEC.

Real Phishing Example: Finance-themed emails found in environments protected by Proofpoint and Symantec MessageLabs deliver Credential Phishing embedded in attached HTML files.

ENVIRONMENTS: Proofpoint

TYPE: Credential Phishing

POSTED ON: 12/05/2022

TACTIC: HTML Attachment

THEME: Finance

PHISHING EXAMPLE DESCRIPTION: Finance-themed emails found in environments protected by Proofpoint and Symantec MessageLabs deliver Credential Phishing embedded in attached HTML files.

Real Phishing Example: Finance-themed emails found in environments protected by Microsoft ATP and Cisco Ironport deliver attached PDF files with links to download password protected archives. The archives contain Async RAT.

ENVIRONMENTS: Microsoft Defender for O365

TYPE: Async RAT

POSTED ON: 12/01/2022

TACTIC: PDF Attachment

THEME: Finance

PHISHING EXAMPLE DESCRIPTION: Finance-themed emails found in environments protected by Microsoft ATP and Cisco Ironport deliver attached PDF files with links to download password protected archives. The archives contain Async RAT.

Malicious emails continue to reach user inboxes, increasing the risk of account compromise, data breach, ransomware attack and more. The same patterns and techniques are used and observed week after week.

Recommendations

Cofense recommends that organizations train personnel to identify and report suspicious emails and use advanced email protection tools. Cofense PhishMe customers should use SEG Miss templates to raise awareness of these attacks. Organizations should also fortify their cyber response playbook with Cofense Triage and Cofense Vision to quickly analyze and auto quarantine the phishing attacks that bypass technical controls.

Interested in seeing more? Search our real Phishing Database.

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