Fortra continues to monitor malicious activity targeting Canadian banks by the Phishing-as-a-Service (PhaaS) group known as LabHost. Throughout 2022 and 2023, phishing campaigns linked to PhaaS platforms have surged, as threat actors increasingly rely on subscription-based services to execute attacks. These platforms offer a range of features, including stolen industry branding, real-time...

Since early 2022, Fortra has been monitoring a significant ongoing upward trend in fraud activity originating from various Phishing-as-a-Service (PhaaS) operations. Some of these services have thrived, while the popularity of others has diminished. One PhaaS operation that has notably been present throughout is Strox (aka Strox.su or Strox Pages). Strox is one of the most complete phishing...

Since 2015, PhishLabs (now Fortra Brand Protection) has tracked how threat actors abuse HTTPS or SSL certs. In particular, threat actors often use HTTPS on their phishing sites to add a layer of legitimacy, better mimic the target site in question, and reduce being flagged or blocked from some browsers. In 2014, threat actors hit a significant milestone in this usage when more than 50% of phishing...

You receive an email, you are unfamiliar with the sender's name or email address, and they are offering you a new service or deal on something. Is it malicious? Not necessarily. Perhaps you forgot about signing up for a newsletter a while back.Malicious vs. BenignAccording to Symantec, 5.5% of business emails are classified as spam. With the average business account receiving around 104 emails per...