Growing Number of Phish Kits Bypass MFA
Phishing kits designed to circumvent multi-factor authentication (MFA) by stealing session cookies are increasingly popular on the cybercrime underground, security researchers at Proofpoint have warned.
After years of prompting by security teams and third-party experts, MFA finally appears to have reached a tipping point of user adoption. Figures from Duo Security cited by Proofpoint in a new blog today claim that 79% of UK and US users deployed some kind of second-factor authentication in 2021 versus 53% in 2019.
However, the threat landscape is changing as a result. Phishing kits offer a cheap-and-easy way for budding cyber-criminals to launch and monetize campaigns.
“In recent years, Proofpoint researchers have observed the emergence of a new type of kit that does not rely on recreating a target website. Instead, these kits use a transparent reverse proxy to present the actual website to the victim,” the firm explained.
“Modern web pages are dynamic and change frequently. Therefore, presenting the actual site instead of a facsimile greatly enhances the illusion an individual is logging in safely. Another advantage of the reverse proxy is that it allows the threat actor to man-in-the-middle (MitM) a session and capture not only the usernames and passwords in real-time, but also the session cookie.”
These cookies can then be used to access a targeted account without needing a username, password or MFA token.
Proofpoint has already noticed an uptick in the availability of such phishing kits and warned that the trend would only increase as MFA becomes more popular. They include “Modlishka,” “Muraena/Necrobrowser” and “Evilginx2.”
“We are now in 2022, the pandemic still rages, many workers are still working from home and many may not return to the office. As more companies follow Google’s lead and start requiring MFA, threat actors will rapidly move to solutions like these MitM kits,” Proofpoint concluded.
“They are easy to deploy, free to use, and have proven effective at evading detection. The industry needs to prepare to deal with blind spots like these before they can evolve in new unexpected directions.”
More Stories
Friday Squid Blogging: Protecting Cephalopods in Medical Research
From Nature: Cephalopods such as octopuses and squid could soon receive the same legal protection as mice and monkeys do...
Russian Company Offers $20M For Non-NATO Mobile Exploits
Operation Zero will pay $20m for exploits like RCE, LPE and SBX, integral to a full-chain attack Read More
Microsoft’s Bing AI Faces Malware Threat From Deceptive Ads
Malwarebytes said the goal of these tactics is to lure victims into downloading malicious software Read More
Phishing, Smishing Surge Targets US Postal Service
The surge in these attacks has prompted DomainTools to delve into their origins and implications Read More
Three men found guilty of laundering $2.5 million in Target gift card tech support scam
Three Californian residents have been convicted of laundering millions of dollars tricked out of older adults who had fallen victim...
ZeroFont trick makes users think that message has been scanned for threats
Attackers are using the "ZeroFont" technique to manipulate the preview of a message to suggest it had already been scanned...