Article
Black Basta Leverages New Social Engineering Technique
Arete Analysis
Threat Actors
Ransomware Technical Analysis
Black Basta, a ransomware group active since at least April 2022, is deploying a new social engineering tactic using Microsoft Teams in an active campaign. The ransomware group floods victim inboxes with thousands of non-malicious emails consisting of newsletters, sign-up confirmations, and email verifications that overwhelm the user’s inbox. Then, posing as the victim company’s IT help desk, the attacker messages the victim on Microsoft Teams and convinces the user to install a remote desktop support tool such as AnyDesk, eventually providing the threat actor remote access to their machine.
What’s Notable and Unique
Once attackers have initial access to the victim’s environment, they are able to install other malware and tools, including ScreenConnect, NetSupport Manager, and Cobalt Strike, for lateral movement and privilege escalation.
Threat actors contact the victims on Microsoft Teams as external users with names that appear to be help desk-related, such as “supportadministrator.omnicosoft[.]com,” giving the actor additional credibility to the potential victim.
Initially, threat actors contacted victims through phone calls, however, initial contact through Teams likely adds an additional layer of credibility in the eyes of the victim.
Analyst Comments
The utilization of Microsoft Teams for social engineering shows an increased level of sophistication in the group’s tactics. Creating scenarios of high stress for targets, combined with using communication methods that the victim feels familiar with, could lead to a higher level of success in social engineering attempts. Arete will continue monitoring for any evolutions of this tactic or other groups adopting the tactic.
Sources
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Article
CMS Vulnerability Leads to ClickFix Campaign
Threat actors compromised at least 700 education and technology websites in a recent ClickFix campaign by exploiting a critical SQL injection flaw (CVE-2026-26980) in the Ghost content management system (CMS). Adversaries combined the vulnerability with the ClickFix social engineering tactic to steal admin keys and inject a malicious JavaScript that delivers a fake Cloudflare or CAPTCHA verification pop-up, tricking victims into copying and pasting a malicious command into their systems.
What’s Notable and Unique
Rather than targeting the end user first, this campaign is unique in its initial exploitation of the system, followed by social engineering attempts. This hybrid attack style is likely being leveraged to bypass traditional defenses.
This recent campaign also highlights how trusted web properties can be weaponized at scale and coupled with unpatched CMS vulnerabilities. Rather than using the CMS compromise to perpetrate a single attack, threat actors turned it into a supply-chain attack that ultimately affected over 700 trusted websites.
Analyst Comments
As network defenders and their tools enhance threat detection capabilities, adversaries increasingly seek methods to bypass these defenses. By combining vulnerability exploitation, social engineering techniques, and staging for ancillary attacks, this campaign successfully bypassed traditional defenses and inflicted significant impact. Defending against hybrid cyberattacks requires comprehensive security controls beyond simply patching vulnerabilities. Organizations should focus on limiting movement within the environment, detecting abuse of trusted applications, and preventing end-user manipulation.
Sources
700+ education and tech websites hijacked in huge ClickFix malware campaign
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Article
Threat Actors Leverage Fake JPEG Files for Initial Access
In a recent campaign, researchers observed threat actors using fake JPEG image files as a delivery mechanism to initiate the deployment of additional malicious components. The false JPEG files are typically distributed via phishing emails or other social engineering-based lures, and are actually PowerShell-based malware that deploys a trojanized version of ConnectWise ScreenConnect to establish and maintain persistence in the compromised environment.
What’s Notable and Unique
This campaign leverages JPEG images as the initial lure, where the images are not merely decoys but part of the infection workflow. Victims are typically led to download or open an image that triggers hidden execution logic or redirects them to a payload-delivery sequence that initiates later stages of the intrusion chain.
The attack chain is designed to blend into legitimate environments, making detection more difficult. Execution typically relies on scripted or native Windows components, often including PowerShell or other living-off-the-land binaries, enabling fileless or near-fileless execution and reducing forensic artifacts on disk.
The multistage design ensures that the initial JPEG does not directly contain the full payload but instead triggers retrieval or decryption steps that progressively assemble the final malicious components in memory.
Analyst Comments
This campaign illustrates how threat actors continue to blur the line between legitimate file handling and malicious execution chains, indicating potential overlap with remote management or administrative tooling. The use of JPEG-based staging combined with script-based execution reflects a broader evolution toward a stealth-first intrusion design, in which file formats serve as triggers rather than payload containers.
Sources
OPERATION SILENTCANVAS : JPEG BASED MULTISTAGE POWERSHELL INTRUSION
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