A recent surge of cyberattacks has revealed the deployment of EvilProxy, a sophisticated phishing tool, in a massive scheme targeting cloud accounts of over 100 high-level executives in global organizations. This attack involved the delivery of 120,000 phishing emails to exploit vulnerabilities in Microsoft 365 accounts.
Proofpoint, a cybersecurity firm, has identified a concerning rise in successful cloud account breaches over the last five months, with a primary focus on prominent executives. The campaign has reportedly impacted more than 100 organizations worldwide, collectively affecting 1.5 million employees.
The attack leverages EvilProxy’s reverse proxy architecture, enabling threat actors to steal multifactor authentication (MFA)-protected credentials and session cookies. The attackers seamlessly integrate a combination of sophisticated phishing techniques with advanced account takeover strategies, capitalizing on the increasing adoption of MFA across organizations.
Alarming statistics reveal a significant rise in account takeovers within MFA-protected environments, with at least 35% of compromised users having MFA enabled in the past year.
The method of attack involves brand impersonation and a multi-step infection chain, often utilizing legitimate redirectors to deceive and redirect victims. EvilProxy, initially discovered by ReSecurity researchers in September 2022, exploits reverse proxy and cookie injection methods to bypass two-factor authentication (2FA), emphasizing the growth of attacks on online services and MFA security mechanisms. The attackers orchestrate their assault by impersonating trusted services like Concur, DocuSign, and Adobe in phishing emails, directing recipients through a series of redirections before leading them to an EvilProxy phishing framework.
Even geographic location influences the attack flow, as users from Turkish IP addresses are directed to legitimate web pages, suggesting the campaign’s origins.
The report concludes that threat actors are continually adapting to new security measures like MFA, indicating the need for heightened vigilance against evolving cyber threats. The utilization of EvilProxy underscores the escalating danger posed by reverse proxy-based attacks, highlighting their capacity to outperform conventional phishing methods in today’s dynamic cybersecurity landscape.
