Several domain spoofing spam campaigns have been detected that are targeting customers of popular UK banks. The spam email campaigns include credible messages and realistic spoofed domains and pose a threat to consumers and businesses alike. The domain spoofing email campaigns are targeting customers of HSBC, Lloyds Bank, Nationwide, NatWest and Santander.
Domain spoofing is the use of a domain similar to that used by a legitimate entity with the aim of fooling email recipients into believing the email and domain is genuine. Domain spoofing is commonly used in phishing attacks, with email recipients fooled into divulging their login credentials or downloading malware. In addition to a similarly named domain, the malicious websites often include the targeted brand’s logos, layouts and color schemes.
According to a warning issued by the SANS Institute’s Internet Storm Center, the latest domain spoofing spam campaigns involve the name of the bank and one of the following additional words: docs; documents; secure; communication; securemessage.
Customers of a targeted back who receive an email and a link from the domain ‘securenatwest.co.uk’ or ‘santandersecuremessage.com’ could easily be fooled into thinking the email is genuine. Other domains being used are hsbcdocs.co.uk, hmrccommunication.co.uk, lloydsbacs.co.uk, nationwidesecure.co.uk, natwestdocuments6.ml, and santanderdocs.co.uk. Further, many consumers still believe a website starting with HTTPS is secure. Yet all of these spoofed domains are all encrypted and have SSL certificates.
The domain spoofing spam campaigns involve messages claiming there is a new secure message from the bank along with an attached HTML file. That file downloads a malicious MS Office document containing macros. If those macros are enabled, the malicious payload is delivered. These campaigns are being used to distribute Trickbot malware – a banking Trojan used for man-in-the-middle attacks to steal banking credentials.
HTML documents are used as they download malicious MS documents via an HTTPS connection to reduce the risk of the documents being detected by antivirus software. SANS Institute researcher Brad Duncan pointed out that this method, while not new, can be effective. He also explained that “poorly managed Windows hosts (or Windows computers using a default configuration) are susceptible to infection.”
The domain spoofing spam campaigns were detected by My Online Security, which notes that “A very high proportion are being targeted at small and medium size businesses, with the hope of getting a better response than they do from consumers.”
Businesses can reduce risk by employing a spam filtering solution to prevent the malicious messages from being delivered to end users, ensuring Windows hosts are correctly configured, and ensuring employees are alert to the threat. Macros should be disabled on all devices and employees instructed never to enable macros or enable content on emailed documents.
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