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Why Me? - Target Of Phishing Attacks
What’s on this page
Introduction
Businesses around the world might differ in operating industry, sector, and geographic location. However, almost all businesses are united in the suffering of phishing attacks targeting their users. Such attacks could be easy to spot by tech-savvy users. Nevertheless, a sophisticated phishing attack could even trick trained users, posing a critical threat and forming a great chance for threat actors to achieve their goals. Moreover, one of the most interesting elements is the variation of the targets, as some users were observed to receive a large volume of phishing emails, while others are receiving a relatively less amount. This advisory aims to uncover the most used techniques by threat actors to obtain the email addresses of the organization’s users to initiate the phishing campaign.
Sources of Email Addresses
Publicly Exposed Accounts
In this case, the threat actors attempt to obtain the email addresses of the users belonging to the targeted entities by searching for any mailboxes associated with the entity's domain in search engines, public resources, and deep web resources such as paste sites. Users in many cases are unintentionally exposing their business emails in LinkedIn or Github accounts as a communication means. However, threat actors will always take advantage of such exposed details to target the users. Additionally, organizations should abstain from publishing content that contains users’ email addresses. The email addresses that can be published are the generic accounts that represent organization departments such as info, HR, marketing, and legal mailboxes.
B2B Directory
A B2B business directory is basically an online directory that is listing businesses around the world, categorizing businesses, and collecting their contact details; aiming to guide users and help them in their search for companies for marketing/business purposes. However, services such RocketReach, Zoominfo, Apollo, Hunter, and SignalHire are truly a goldmine for malicious actors to obtain a user's contact details. These online databases of businesses have their own methodologies for obtaining, verifying, and then selling the employees’ contact details of an entity. B2B directories provide such information for business purposes; hence, most of them also provide a “removal request” feature in their platform so the targeted entity will be allowed to contact them in order to remove their own data from the B2B Directory platform. In the Appendix, we have listed the most common B2B Directory platforms along with their contact details to request the removal of the organization’s details.
Email Syntax Guessing
In this case, the attacker is capable of guessing multiple user mailboxes, either by searching for the email format used by a specific entity or by guessing the generic department's mail lists, such as Public Relations, IT Department, or HR. In this case, the threat actor is not looking for a specific email account; instead, the goal here is to identify the email format being adopted by an organization. Then, the threat actor will work on identifying the employee’s names from public sources such as LinkedIn and map the employee’s name to the organization’s email format. For example, the threat actor was able to identify that the email format followed by XYZ organization is “{First Initial}.{Last Name}@xyz.com”. Then, by exploring the LinkedIn page of XYZ organization, the actor was able to find an employee with the name “John Smith”. Therefore, the threat actor will attempt to target this specific user by sending the phishing email to the mailbox “jsmith@xyz.com” which will likely be a valid email address for the user.
Third-Party Data Breaches
Data breaches are the leakage of an organization's sensitive information, including the Personally Identifiable Information (PII) related to the organization’s users or customers. The breached information is not limited in most cases to email addresses or passwords. Breaches can include the exposure of dates of birth, geographic locations, names, employer name, gender, and phone numbers. Once a third-party entity - such as social media or any service provider - is breached, the malicious actor will tend to sell the data to the public. Such data exposure represents a great source of information for threat actors as for sure some information of the organization's employees will be part of such breaches due to the registration in the breached party. By acquiring the dumps of data breaches and looking for the details associated with the users belonging to the targeted entity, this method can be utilized by the attackers to perform more sophisticated attacks. Users that are using their corporate email accounts for the registration of third-party services are for sure highly vulnerable to this type of information exposure.
Phenomenon: Targeting Personal Inboxes With CxO Name
CTM360 witnessed an increase in a sophisticated attack willing to lure the victims by delivering the phishing email to the victim’s personal inbox. Hence, the victim would be in a tough situation where he might be in a direct encounter with the threat actor; far away from the corporate defenses. The attack scheme is mostly utilizing compromised mailboxes from well-reputed email providers, using a C-level executive name as a sender, and requesting urgent action to be performed from the victim. Such details are actually aligned with the scope of advisory, where the attacker is taking advantage of the exposed details in data breaches, which includes useful information such as email addresses, job titles, employers, names, phone numbers, and social media profiles. Then, the attacker is mapping and correlating these exposed details to the victim profile of the targeted entity and initiates the Phishing attack targeting the victim’s personal mailbox.
Recommendations
In order to protect your organization from email exposure, the following steps are recommended to be taken:
- Ask your employees to remove their business account details if it was published online.
- Reach out to the B2B directories listing your users requesting the removal of the accounts.
- Use generic mailboxes in your online publications such as HR, Marketing, or Legal.
- Ensure to have a strict policy regarding the registration in online third-party services.
- Ensure not to use the same email address pattern across the organization. Use different email patterns such as:
- {LastName}@xyz.com
- {First_Initail}{LastName}@xyz.com
- {FirstName}{LastName}@xyz.com
- {LastName}{First_Initial}{Middle_Initial}@xyz.com
Appendix
Recent Blogs
Microsoft Mandates DMARC for Bulk Email by May2025
Overview
The fight against email-based threats is intensifying. Following the lead of Google and Yahoo, Microsoft has officially announced the mandatory implementation of email authentication protocols, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, for high-volume email senders, effective May 5, 2025. Domains sending over 5,000 daily emails to Microsoft's platforms, including Outlook.com, Hotmail.com, and Live.com, will be required to authenticate their messages. Initially, non-compliant messages will be redirected to recipients' Junk folders, with eventual total rejection expected if compliance isn't achieved. This enforcement represents a critical step in securing global email communications from spoofing and phishing threats (Microsoft Tech Community).
Understanding Email Authentication
Email authentication has become essential in combating increasingly sophisticated phishing and spoofing attacks. Three core standards have been adopted widely:
- Sender Policy Framework (SPF: RFC 7208): Verifies the legitimacy of the sending mail server, ensuring messages originate from authorized infrastructure. SPF helps prevent sender address forgery by defining authorized sending sources in DNS records.
- DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM: RFC 6376): Cryptographically signs email messages, allowing recipients to confirm message content hasn't been altered in transit. DKIM leverages public-private key pairs to ensure message integrity and authenticity.
- Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC: RFC 7489): Combines SPF and DKIM to enforce domain alignment, verify authenticity, and provide reporting mechanisms for senders to track email usage and potential abuse. DMARC is recommended to be implemented in three incremental stages: initial monitoring (p=none), intermediate quarantining of suspicious messages to test the policy impact (p=quarantine), and full rejection of unauthorized emails to achieve DMARC compliance (p=reject).
Email Content and Delivery Best Practice Guidance
To help the email ecosystem thrive and ensure that legitimate communications reach users' inboxes, major providers like Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft have released a unified set of technical and content-based requirements. This section consolidates these guidelines into a single resource for senders seeking to avoid spam filtering and maintain high deliverability rates.
1. Message Headers & Structural Integrity
2. Content Hygiene and Formatting
3. Infrastructure and Technical Configuration
4. Recipient List Management
5. Engagement and Complaint Monitoring
6. Summary Recommendations
- Align headers and domains with clear, professional identities.
- Respect opt-in and unsubscribe behaviors with transparent mechanisms.
- Structure content to be clean, concise, and free of deceptive or spammy characteristics.
- Maintain technical hygiene through DNS, TLS, SPF limits, and ARC usage.
- Monitor sender reputation and user engagement continuously.
- Ensure SPF and DKIM are properly configured and aligned with the domain in the
Fromp=none.
Immediate Impact and Risks of Non - compliance
As of May 2025, domains that fail SPF or DKIM checks or lack a correctly configured DMARC policy with alignment will risk having their emails marked as spam or not delivered at all. Misalignment occurs when the domain used in the message's "From" address doesn't match the domains authenticated by SPF or DKIM.
Organizations failing to comply face significant risks, including diminished deliverability rates, compromised customer trust, and increased susceptibility to impersonation attacks. These impacts directly affect an organization's reputation, customer engagement, and potentially, its revenue.
Actionable Recommendations for Immediate Implementation
To effectively prepare for these mandatory standards, organizations should:
- Audit current DNS records: Utilize tools such as "dig" or Google DNS to verify SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records.
- Begin with Monitoring (p=none): Initially deploy DMARC in monitoring mode to understand email flows and detect anomalies without risking legitimate email delivery.
- Gradually enforce stricter policies: Move from quarantine to full rejection while monitoring.
- Ensure domain alignment: "From" domain must match what’s authenticated via SPF or DKIM.
- Maintain email hygiene: Clean lists, include a clear opt-out option, and avoid using misleading subject lines or headers.
Start Your DMARC Journey with CTM360 Free Community Edition
To support organizations navigating these changes, CTM360 offers a complimentary zero-cost Community Edition platform. It allows comprehensive monitoring, management, and enhancement of your DMARC records and email authentication setup. This proactive approach helps organizations reduce risks associated with impersonation attacks and maintain reliable email communication.
Join CTM360 Community Edition today, no hidden costs, simply real security.
Reference:
Disclaimer:
The information contained in this document is meant to provide general guidance and brief information to the intended recipient pertaining to the incident and recommended action. Therefore, this information is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including accuracy, timeliness, and completeness.
Consequently, under NO condition shall CTM360®, its related partners, directors, principals, agents, or employees be liable for any direct, indirect, accidental, special, exemplary, punitive, consequential, or other damages or claims whatsoever including, but not limited to loss of data, loss in profits/business, network disruption...etc., arisina out of or in connection with this advisory.
For more information: Email: monitor@ctm360.com Tel: (973) 77 360 360
Digital Theft
CTM360 has observed a sudden rise in Whatsapp accounts being hijacked in the MENA Region. In most cases, this occurs through social engineering, in which the victim would receive a Whatsapp message or phone call; they are usually requested to provide verification codes or personal/confidential information. Such disclosure would enable the hijackers to take over their victims’ Whatsapp accounts.
Following these occurrences, scammers could then use these accounts to impersonate the victim or even Whatsapp’s support team, usually to send suspicious links to unsuspecting users, or further implement social engineering techniques on other potential victims.
ALTERNATE METHODS USED TO HIJACK WATSAPP ACCOUNTS
CTM360 has observed a sudden rise in Whatsapp accounts being hijacked in the MENA Region. In most cases, this occurs through social engineering, in which the victim would receive a Whatsapp message or phone call; they are usually requested to provide verification codes or personal/confidential information. Such disclosure would enable the hijackers to take over their victims’ Whatsapp accounts.
Following these occurrences, scammers could then use these accounts to impersonate the victim or even Whatsapp’s support team, usually to send suspicious links to unsuspecting users, or further implement social engineering techniques on other potential victims.
Alternate methods used to hijack watsapp accounts
Although most attacks occur through social engineering, many scammers had deviated from their traditional methods. Some key examples may include but are not limited to:
- Brand impersonation: Big brands may often be targeted, e.g. banks and financial institutions, to display a sense of legitimacy. Threat actors may often use a well-known brand image claiming to be from a reputable company. With a convincing display, it wouldn’t take much effort to attain trust and obtain confidential information from victims.
- High profile Impersonation: Scammers may often choose to impersonate C-level executives of large, well-known organizations and other well-known influential personalities. Assuming the character of high profile individuals may convey a sense of importance to the victim, and perhaps invoke a sense of urgency to respond and comply with any given requests.
- Hijacked Whatsapp Accounts: Scammers may use hijacked Whatsapp accounts to send malicious links or requests to the previous account owner’s contacts. Since the contacts are already connected with the victim, the sense of trust may be used to the scammer’s advantage.
- Fake Promotions: Fraudsters may often send links or messages containing information regarding special promotions on fake E-commerce sites. These sites would often lure their victims into providing their WhatsApp registration codes.
- Compromising Victims Voicemail Using Default Password: Scammers may bypass the Whatsapp verification process with the help of the target's voicemail account. This is done when the hacker repeatedly fails the registration code and Whatsapp performs a voice verification by calling the victim directly. By initiating the attack at odd hours, scammers would be able to redirect the message to the victim’s voicemail, which the hacker can easily penetrate to recover the audio message. As a result, victims may get their account stolen without even realizing what had happened.
SECURE YOUR WHATSAPP ACCOUNT
WhatsApp users are advised to take necessary precautionary measures to protect themselves from falling victim to attacks. Some of these include:
- Protecting your WhatsApp account by enabling the ‘Two-Step Verification’ feature; is found under the ‘Settings’ tab of your WhatsApp application. Users may also enable the option of a backup email address if they wish.
- Changing your default voicemail PIN. Please refer to your respective Telco service providers for information on changing/resetting your voicemail PIN.
- Do not share your WhatsApp account verification codes or any One-Time Passwords (OTP) with anyone. You may receive suspicious messages from existing contacts or strangers via WhatsApp. Do not respond, especially if the sender requests an OTP or code. Also do not click on any links or provide any personal information.
- Verify the authenticity of the messages through alternative means (e.g. calling the contact, online research etc.) If the suspicious messages are from unknown numbers, report the contact to WhatsApp directly.
Baiting Facebook Groups
CTM360 discovered an ongoing fraudulent activity on Meta's social media platform, ‘Facebook’.
Threat Overview
While conducting fraud hunting exercises, CTM360 discovered an ongoing fraudulent activity on Meta's social media platform, ‘Facebook’. This particular scam involves scammers using Facebook public groups to disseminate fraudulent schemes. These groups are created solely to bait victims. By leveraging these groups, the scammers can reach a large audience that shares common interests or belongs to specific regions. Unfortunately, this fraudulent activity has resulted in financial losses for many unsuspecting individuals.
Fraud Methodology
The scammers begin by either scouting Facebook groups OR creating new groups that serve the scammer's goal, aiming to identify the target audience. This is likely done through various criteria such as:
- Page Topic: the main drive and title that define the overall niche.
- User Interests: the general interest and posts shared in the group by the members.
- Targeted Region: the location where the scammer wants to target the users.
- Scammers are carrying their scams through Facebook and specifically through Facebook groups to abuse its private nature with the ability to mask the profile’s name causing a noticeable rise in fraudulent activities advertised with untraceable users - through the "Anonymous Participant" feature in Facebook Groups.
- Within the suspicious posts, scammers are claiming to provide bogus services like:
- Fraudulent Payment Installments
- Loans or loan restructuring
- Issuance of Credit Cards with high limits
- Fake Job Posting
- Stolen Gift cards
Why Should Organizations Be Concerned?
To reflect legitimacy of the fraudulent promotional post the scammers abuse genuine company name or genuine product brands.
Scammers adopt various tactics, such as presenting themselves as authentic sellers offering enticing deals on products. So they are “impersonating” your organization, brand or identity of your executive management.
Their goal is not to deliver the promised items at all or to provide counterfeit goods. Hence they impersonate well-known brands, celebrities, or even users' friends within these groups, leveraging these false identities to deceive individuals into disclosing sensitive information or making monetary transactions.
One variation of the scam posts claims to host free giveaways or contests. These seemingly attractive offers often serve as a guise to harvest personal information or involve users in deceptive activities. The other scam cases range from inquiries about installment options, salary transfers, credit card applications, loans, and job opportunities to scams like Advance-Fee Fraud.
The unauthorized use of an organization's brand name in posts within such Facebook groups poses a significant concern. At minimum it has implications on reputation, furthermore your customers could suffer financial losses or compromise their personal information, leading to broader implications for both the organization and the affected individuals.
Threat Impacts
The fraudulent posts published in these groups can have various threat impacts on the users such as:
- Financial Loss: These posts often involve fraudulent loan offers that target individuals who are in need of financial assistance. Scammers may request upfront fees or personal information, promising a loan that never materializes.
- Expose Personal Information: When users share personal and financial information in response to fake offers in Facebook groups, there is a risk that this information may be shared or sold to third parties without their consent.
- Phishing Attack: Some loan scams may involve indirect phishing attempts, where scammers might trick individuals into providing their login credentials or other sensitive information through fake loan application forms or websites.
Recommendations
For Businesses:
- Spread Awareness: Conduct awareness campaigns on official social media to educate customers about such scams.
- Active Monitoring & Takedowns of Baiting Facebook Groups: Such baiting groups should be actively monitored and any infringement identified related to your brand should be reported to vendors for further actions such as Takedown.
For Individuals:
- Be cautious with personal information: Avoid sharing personal information in Facebook groups, especially if the posts seem suspicious or potentially fraudulent. Protect your identity and be wary of any requests for sensitive information.
- Don't Pay Upfront Fees: Legitimate lenders typically deduct fees from the loan amount or include them in the repayment plan. Be cautious of these scammers who request upfront fees before providing the loan. This is a common red flag for scams.