Category: Identity & Governance

Taiwan’s national CERT (TWCERT/CC) reports an active social-engineering campaign that combines legitimate Microsoft 365 email accounts, near-typosquat domains, and short-term SSL certificates to bypass email and web defenses. The activity includes two waves: (1) broad phishing emails themed as “Microsoft account abnormal sign-in activity” and (2) targeted spear-phishing that repeatedly sends “Microsoft one-time code” lures to create urgency before delivering an “abnormal sign-in” message. A notable tactic described by TWCERT is URL-pattern-based gating: victims who match attacker-defined URL rules see a customized phishing page that harvests credentials, while non-matching visitors are redirected to a legitimate login page—reducing detection and increasing credibility. Read more

Taiwan’s national CERT (TWCERT/CC) warns that attackers are increasingly using public blockchains as command-and-control (C2) infrastructure. The advisory highlights “EtherHide,” a technique first described by security researchers in October 2023, where adversaries store malicious commands or payload locations inside smart contracts. Malware (or malicious web scripts) can then query the chain for updated instructions, reducing the effectiveness of traditional controls like domain/IP blocking and traffic monitoring. TWCERT/CC also notes EtherHide is frequently chained with the “ClearFake” social-engineering pattern—fake system notifications or software update prompts—often delivered via compromised WordPress sites embedding malicious JavaScript. The combined flow uses Binance Smart Chain (BSC) smart contracts and read-only calls (e.g., eth_call) to retrieve attacker instructions without on-chain transaction fees, improving stealth and persistence. Read more