Description

EvilProxy, a phishing-as-a-service platform, is targeting MFA-protected accounts in a wave of cyberattacks in which 120,000 phishing emails were sent to over a hundred organisations in order to acquire Microsoft 365 accounts, particularly among top executives. EvilProxy strategy involves employing capabilities such as brand impersonation, evasion of bot detection, and open redirection strategies. According to reports, EvilProxy tool exploits reverse proxies to intercept authentication requests and user credentials during interactions with legitimate service websites which enables the phishing server to capture authentication cookies following user logins. Notably, this method exploits the fact that users have already cleared MFA hurdles during their initial login and Malicious actors can avoid multi-factor authentication by stealing the authentication cookie. Additionally, according to Resecurity, EvilProxy is being sold to malicious actors for $400 per month, claiming the capacity to attack Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, GitHub, GoDaddy, and PyPI clients. In the newly identified phishing campaign found by Proofpoint spanning from March 2023 onwards, attackers have employed this service to craft deceptive emails masquerading as reputable brands like Adobe, DocuSign, and Concur. Upon clicking a link embedded in the email, victims unwittingly embark on a convoluted redirection path through platforms such as YouTube or SlickDeals, deliberately constructed to obfuscate and deter analysis. Eventually, the victim lands on an EvilProxy-hosted phishing page, which mirrors the Microsoft 365 login interface, complete with the victim's organization's branding. Further to Conceal the user email addresses from automated scanning tools involves intricate encoding techniques where attackers utilize compromised legitimate websites to host their decoding PHP code, which ultimately reveals the targeted user's email address, as per Proofpoint's analysis. Following the email decoding phase, users are then directed to a customized phishing page tailored to their specific organization. Researchers stated that with this campaign malicious actors targeted "VIP" targets where C-level executives constitute a significant portion of the compromised accounts, with 39% falling under this category. CEOs, vice presidents, and chief financial officers make up 9%, 17%, and 17% respectively, while the remainder possess access to financial resources or sensitive information. Furthermore, after a Microsoft 365 account has been compromised, the threat actors strengthen their control by implementing their own multi-factor authentication technique, assuring persistence within the compromised account.