Folks often like to think of URLs as an entity that can be evaluated: “Is it harmless, or is it malicious?” In particular, vendors of security products tend to lump URLs in with other IoCs (indicators of compromise) like the hash of a known-malicious file, a malicious/compromised digital certificate, or a known-malicious IP address. Unfortunately,Continue reading “Beware: URLs are Pointers to Mutable Entities”
Tag Archives: InfoSecTTP
Attack Techniques: Fullscreen Abuse
It’s extremely difficult to prevent attacks when there are no trustworthy pixels on the screen, especially if a user doesn’t realize that none of what they’re seeing should be trusted. Unfortunately for the browsing public, the HTML5 Fullscreen API can deliver this power to an attacker. Today (and for over a decade now), an attackingContinue reading “Attack Techniques: Fullscreen Abuse”
Defensive Techniques: Application Guard
Earlier this year, I mentioned that I load every phishing URL I’m sent to see what it does and whether it tries to use any interesting new techniques. While Edge’s “Enhanced Security Mode” reduces the risks of 0-day attacks against the browser itself, another great defense available for enterprise users is Microsoft Defender Application Guard.Continue reading “Defensive Techniques: Application Guard”
Attack Techniques: QR Codes
As outlined in earlier posts in this series, attackers know that security software can detect their phishing lures and block users from even seeing the lure if it contains a known-phishing URL. For example, both Windows Live and Gmail block email that is believed to contain phishing links. If your enterprise uses Microsoft Defender forContinue reading “Attack Techniques: QR Codes”
Attack Techniques: SMS Gift Card Scams
Last week, I had the chance to fly to Redmond to meet my new teammates on the Protection team in Microsoft Defender. I also had the chance to catch up with a few old friends from the Edge team, one of whom I met for coffee on Friday morning. As we sat down with ourContinue reading “Attack Techniques: SMS Gift Card Scams”
Attack Techniques: Spoofing via UserInfo
I received the following phishing lure by SMS a few days back: The syntax of URLs is complicated, and even tech-savvy users often misinterpret them. In the case of the URL above, the actual site’s hostname is brefjobgfodsebsidbg.com, and the misleading http://www.att.net:911 text is just a phony username:password pair making up the UserInfo component ofContinue reading “Attack Techniques: Spoofing via UserInfo”
Attack Techniques: Open Redirectors, CAPTCHAs, Site Proxies, and IPFS, oh my
The average phishing site doesn’t live very long– think hours rather than days or weeks. Attackers use a variety of techniques to try to keep ahead of the Defenders who work tirelessly to break their attack chains and protect the public. Defenders have several opportunities to interfere with attackers: Each of these represents a weakContinue reading “Attack Techniques: Open Redirectors, CAPTCHAs, Site Proxies, and IPFS, oh my”
Attack Techniques: Blended Attacks via Telephone
Last month, we looked at a technique where a phisher serves his attack from the user’s own computer so that anti-phishing code like SmartScreen and SafeBrowsing do not have a meaningful URL to block. Another approach for conducting an attack like this is to send a lure which demands that the victim complete the attackContinue reading “Attack Techniques: Blended Attacks via Telephone”
Defense Techniques: Reporting Phish
While I have a day job, I’ve been moonlighting as a crimefighting superhero for almost twenty years. No, I’m not a billionaire who dons a rubber bat suit to beat up bad guys– I’m instead flagging phishing websites that try to steal money and personal information from the less tech-savvy among us. I have hadContinue reading “Defense Techniques: Reporting Phish”
Attack Techniques: Priming Attacks on Legitimate Sites
Earlier today, we looked at two techniques for attackers to evade anti-phishing filters by using lures that are not served from http and https urls that are subject to reputation analysis. A third attack technique is to send a lure that entices a user to visit a legitimate site and perform an unsafe operation onContinue reading “Attack Techniques: Priming Attacks on Legitimate Sites”
text/plain 