Grandoreiro Banking Trojan Hits Brazil as Smishing Scams Surge in Pakistan

Grandoreiro Banking Trojan Hits Brazil as Smishing Scams Surge in Pakistan

June 15, 2024 at 06:42AM

The Smishing Triad, a threat group previously targeting the E.U., U.S., Saudi Arabia, and the U.A.E., has expanded its operations to Pakistan. Operating via smishing tactics, they have targeted users of mobile carriers, impersonating Pakistan Post to steal personal and financial information. Other threat actors such as PINEAPPLE, UNC5176, FLUXROOT, and Red Akodon have also been identified in various cyber threat activities.

From the meeting notes, it is apparent that there are several prominent threat actors and malicious activities targeting various regions and industry sectors. Some key takeaways from the notes are:

1. Smishing Triad, a threat actor previously active in the E.U., Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., and the U.S., has expanded its operations to Pakistan. It is using tactics such as sending malicious messages impersonating Pakistan Post to steal personal and financial information from mobile users.

2. Google revealed details about a threat actor named PINEAPPLE, targeting Brazilian users with tax and finance-themed lures in spam messages, ultimately deploying the Astaroth information-stealing malware.

3. There are observed abuses of legitimate cloud services by threat actors such as PINEAPPLE and FLUXROOT to distribute malware, including the use of platforms like Google Cloud, Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Dropbox.

4. A new threat actor, Red Akodon, has been identified exploiting various remote access trojans through phishing messages, targeting government, health, education, financial, manufacturing, food, services, and transportation industries in Colombia.

These meeting notes highlight the evolving and pervasive nature of cyber threats posed by different threat actors across multiple regions and industry sectors. It’s crucial for organizations to stay vigilant and adopt robust cybersecurity measures to mitigate these risks.

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