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   UK’s NCSC: Passwordless Authentication GuidelinesDownload Now
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   Building a layered defense to combat advanced phishing threatsDownload Now




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News


NCSC EXPOSES IRANIAN, RUSSIAN SPEAR-PHISHING CAMPAIGN TARGETING UK




SPEAR-PHISHING CAMPAIGNS LIKELY LINKED TO IRANIAN AND RUSSIAN ESPIONAGE ACTIVITY
ARE TARGETING PERSONS OF INTEREST IN THE UK, WARNS THE NCSC

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By
 * Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Published: 26 Jan 2023 0:01

Hostile advanced persistent threat (APT) groups aligned with the national
interests of Iran and Russia are targeting UK nationals including academics,
activists, charity and NGO workers, defence and government officials,
journalists, and politicians, with carefully crafted and highly targeted
spear-phishing emails, according to new intelligence from the UK’s National
Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).



The distinct yet technically similar campaigns are attributed with relative
confidence to Iran’s TA453, which also goes by Charming Kitten among other
names, and Russia’s Seaborgium, which also goes by Cold River and was recently
linked to an attack on former MI6 chief Richard Dearlove and a group of hard
Brexit advocates, and an incident targeting US nuclear scientists.

The ongoing pattern of cyber activity is suspected, although not confirmed by
the NCSC, to be linked to intelligence gathering in support of the goals of the
APTs’ supposed government paymasters in Tehran and Moscow.

It is relatively small in scale and does not pose an immediate threat to the
majority of the British public in the grand scheme of things, according to the
NCSC’s operations director, Paul Chichester, who said it was more the
sophistication of the attacks, rather than the volume, that was a worry.

“The UK is committed to exposing malicious cyber activity alongside our industry
partners, and this advisory raises awareness of the persistent threat posed by
spear-phishing attacks,” he said.

“These campaigns by threat actors based in Russia and Iran continue to
ruthlessly pursue their targets in an attempt to steal online credentials and
compromise potentially sensitive systems.

“We strongly encourage organisations and individuals to remain vigilant to
potential approaches and follow the mitigation advice in the advisory to protect
themselves online.”

READ MORE ABOUT SPEAR-PHISHING

 * The Dark Pink advanced persistent threat group used custom malware to
   exfiltrate data from high-profile targets through spear-phishing emails last
   year, according to Group-IB.
 * The increasingly active Ducktail cyber crime operation is refining its
   operations, seeking new methods to compromise its victims’ Facebook Business
   accounts.

The NCSC is today issuing a new advisory addressed directly to potential victims
– something it only generally does when it is relatively certain there is an
urgent need to conduct outreach towards vulnerable organisations or individuals,
so its findings are worth noting.

The two spear-phishing campaigns observed both deploy relatively similar
elements of cyber tradecraft, particularly when it comes to spear-phishing
techniques.

Contact will generally appear benign and may seem to originate from legitimate
contacts, as the groups look to gain the confidence and trust of their intended
victims. The lures observed included fake invitations to conferences or events.

Approaches are being made via email, social media and professional networks, but
notably in this instance, TA453 and Seaborgium have been seen targeting the
personal email accounts of their victims, as opposed to official work accounts.

The NCSC believes this tactic may present an easier route in for the attackers,
taking advantage of people being more inclined to trust people to whom they have
given their personal email address, or being less on their guard when using
personal services. It can also help them bypass email security controls that may
be in place on organisational networks.

The email correspondence may also appear to be part of an ongoing thread, and in
some instances, these groups have even been observed adopting multiple personas
to create convincing email threads, which helps build a rapport and presents a
narrative that the victim may be more inclined to respond to.


SHARING MALICIOUS CONTENT

Ultimately, the objective of the campaigns is to share malicious documents or
links to phishing websites that can lead to downstream credential theft and
compromise. In the observed campaigns, many of these links were disguised as
Zoom meeting URLs.

The NCSC emphasised that while the two campaigns share many similarities, it has
found no evidence that they are linked, or that TA453 and Seaborgium have been
collaborating.

The NCSC is advising people working in targeted industries to be particularly
vigilant, and to adopt a set of basic cyber security principles that can vastly
reduce their chances of being compromised.

These include using strong and separate passwords across email accounts,
activating multi-factor authentication wherever possible, keeping devices and
networks patched and up to date, enabling automated email scanning features from
providers, and disabling mail forwarding. Additionally, as always, it is
important to maintain a healthy degree of scepticism when opening unexpected
emails, even if they seem to be from a close contact.

The Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure also maintains an
application, Think Before You Link, which can help individuals identify
malicious online profiles and cut the risk of being targeted.



READ MORE ON HACKERS AND CYBERCRIME PREVENTION

 * NCSC WARNS PUBLIC OF POTENTIAL QUEEN-RELATED PHISHING ATTACKS
   
   
   By: Alex Scroxton

 * MULTI-PERSONA IMPERSONATION ADDS NEW DIMENSION TO PHISHING
   
   
   By: Alex Scroxton

 * HOW HOSTILE GOVERNMENT APTS TARGET JOURNALISTS FOR CYBER INTRUSIONS
   
   
   By: Alex Scroxton

 * SPEAR PHISHING
   
   
   By: Mary Shacklett

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