The FBI has issued a warning to US retailers a few financially-motivated malicious hacking ring that has been concentrating on workers with phishing assaults in an try and create fraudulent reward playing cards.
Workers on the company workplaces of US retail corporations have been the goal of highly-sophisticated e mail phishing and SMS phishing (“smishing”) assaults. These assaults try to achieve entry to worker accounts, IT programs, and cloud providers utilized by the corporate.
As soon as they’ve gained entry, the cybercriminals goal different workers as a way to transfer laterally by a community. They try and steal passwords and SSH keys that will finally enable them to create unauthorised reward playing cards.
Reward playing cards are a preferred and handy reward possibility, however their ease of use has made them a primary goal for scammers.
In 2023 alone, reward card scams had been liable for a staggering US $217 million in client losses.
“Card draining” is a very insidious tactic, which sees scammers acquire details about reward playing cards that haven’t but been purchased. Later, after these are purchased by an unsuspecting client, scammers can use the stolen reward card particulars to make purchases.
However the group whose actions the FBI is warning about, STORM-0539, would not simply steal reward card info. Additionally it is desirous about amassing worker information and community configuration particulars. These particulars might later be offered on to different cybercriminals or exploited in later broader assaults.
The cybercrime group STORM-0539 (often known as Atlas Lion) has been energetic since not less than 2021. It has grow to be infamous for the delicate phishing package that enables it to defeat multi-factor authentication (MFA) defences.
They’re additionally famend for his or her persistence. The STORM-0539 gang makes use of a wide range of strategies to proceed assaults even after an organisation has applied defences.
The FBI’s warning follows a similar alert from Microsoft in December concerning elevated STORM-0539 exercise throughout the vacation season.
Previously, scammers have additionally physically removed gift cards from store shelves, recorded the reward card’s activation info, and changed them with decoys. Then, the criminals return the compromised playing cards to the cabinets, ready for unsuspecting clients to buy them earlier than finally making fraudulent purchases utilizing the funds of victims.
As a consequence, lawmakers in some states have been pushing for stronger laws that enforces safer packaging for reward playing cards.
Editor’s Word: The opinions expressed on this visitor creator article are solely these of the contributor and don’t essentially replicate these of Tripwire.
