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posted by Fnord666 on Monday February 24 2020, @11:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the emotet,-emotet,-emotet dept.

SMS Attack Spreads Emotet, Steals Bank Credentials:

A new Emotet campaign is spread via SMS messages pretending to be from banks and may have ties to the TrickBot trojan.

Attackers are sending SMS messages purporting to be from victims' banks – but once they click on the links in the text messages, they are asked to hand over their banking credentials and download a file that infects their systems with the Emotet malware.

Emotet has continued to evolve since its return in September, including a new, dangerous Wi-Fi hack feature disclosed last week that can let the malware spread like a worm. Now, this most recent campaign delivers the malware via "smishing," a form of phishing that relies on text messages instead of email. While smishing is certainly nothing new, researchers say that the delivery tactic exemplifies Emotet's operators constantly swapping up their approaches to go beyond mere malspam emails – making it hard for defense teams to keep up.

[...] The SMS messages purport to be from local U.S. numbers and impersonate banks, warning users of locked bank accounts. The messages urge victims to click on a link, which redirects them to a domain that's known to distribute Emotet (shabon[.]co). Visually, when victims click on the link they see a customized phishing page that mimics the bank's mobile banking page.

Threatpost has reached out to X-Force researchers regarding how many victims have received the SMS messages, and which banks the messages purport to be associated with.


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  • (Score: 2) by Common Joe on Tuesday February 25 2020, @09:55AM

    by Common Joe (33) <{common.joe.0101} {at} {gmail.com}> on Tuesday February 25 2020, @09:55AM (#962298) Journal

    Convenience kills security. Banks and many other companies have taught people to click on links in emails, and, with web-enabled phones, in text messages.

    This. I was stuck with a bank for reasons I won't get into, but they kept sending out emails with links embedded in them urging people to click on them and login. It was legit from the bank. I even reported them to themselves off and on for years with explanations why it shouldn't be done. I guess after 4 years, they finally decided to stop. Unbelieveable.

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