Researchers at IBM X-Drive are monitoring a number of massive phishing campaigns spreading an up to date model of the Grandoreiro banking trojan.
The legal malware operation was disrupted by legislation enforcement in January 2024 however resurfaced in March with an expanded set of targets. The brand new model of the malware is focusing on greater than 1,500 banks in over sixty international locations.
“Though campaigns have historically been restricted to Latin America, Spain, and Portugal, X-Drive noticed latest campaigns impersonating Mexico’s Tax Administration Service (SAT), Mexico’s Federal Electrical energy Fee (CFE), Mexico’s Secretary of Administration and Finance, the Income Service of Argentina, and notably the South African Income Service (SARS),” the researchers write.
“The reworked malware and new focusing on might point out a change in technique because the newest legislation enforcement motion in opposition to Grandoreiro, possible prompting the operators to begin increasing the deployment of Grandoreiro in world phishing campaigns, starting with South Africa.”
The phishing emails impersonate varied authorities businesses within the focused international locations, informing customers that they should open an pressing doc. The paperwork are designed to trick customers into putting in the malware.
“In every marketing campaign, the recipients are instructed to click on on a hyperlink to view an bill or price, account assertion, make a fee, and so on. relying on the impersonated entity,” the researchers write.
“If the person who clicks on the hyperlinks is inside a particular nation (relying on the marketing campaign, Mexico, Chile, Spain, Costa Rica, Peru, or Argentina), they’re redirected to a picture of a PDF icon, and a ZIP file is downloaded within the background. The ZIP recordsdata comprise a big executable disguised with a PDF icon, discovered to have been created the day previous to, or the day of the e-mail being despatched.”
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IBM X-Drive has the story.