You're kidding me

All the authentication and DMARC in the world can’t save you from stupid.
I just got a survey request from my bank. Or, at least, it claimed to be from my bank.

From: Barclays International Banking Survey <internationalbanking@barclayssurveys.com>

The mail passed SPF (though the SPF record suggests this is being mailed from all over the place) and was validly DKIM signed for barclayssurveys.com. And that domain has a DMARC policy
But there’s nothing in any of that that tells me – or mail filters – that this has anything to do with Barclays Bank.
“barclayssurveys.com” is what’s know as a cousin domain in the phishing world. It’s a domain that has absolutely nothing to connect it to the legitimate domain of the phishing target, but which looks plausible to a recipient.
This one didn’t actually look that plausible, though. The website is hosted on a RackSpace VPS with no reverse DNS configured. The domain is registered by “chime.plc.uk” – whose website is just an Outlook Web Access instance:

The survey it links to – the survey that is asking the recipient about their interaction with a financial institution – doesn’t use SSL. (The webserver it’s running on does speak SSL, so the issue is that they didn’t have a certificate for barclayssurveys.com). The URL it uses and the javascript it’s running suggests it was originally taken from Wix, the free website hosting platform. And it has references to several survey providers in the source that are hidden by CSS.

All of which would be suspicious enough if it came from my local dive bar, but this is coming from an international bank that’s big enough, rich enough and technically savvy enough that they own their own top level domain.
No institution can claim to care about phishing or account takeover as an issue when the legitimate email they send is less plausible than a typical phishing mail. This is just setting up their customers to fall for phishing mail.

And, yes, it’s from a legitimate survey firm. One that’s quite widely used in the United Kingdom and Éire. How do I know it’s widely used? Because the mail they send out leaks information about their customers:

X-Confirmit-FixedSenderDomain: factssurvey.co.uk, feedback-waveutilities.co.uk, feedback-anglianwaterbusiness.co.uk, npowersurveys.com, o2surveys.co.uk, gustosurveys.co.uk, customersatisfaction.rbs.co.uk, customersatisfaction.natwest.com, mail.customersatisfaction.rbs.co.uk, mail.customersatisfaction.natwest.com, panel.uk.com, virgintrainseastcoastsurveys.com, barclayssurveys.com, sunnyloanssurveys.com, sagafeedback.co.uk, boxcleversurveys.co.uk, surveys.ulsterbank.ie, sagafeedback.co.uk, barclays.com, titanfeedback.co.uk, barclaycardsurveys.com, aegonfeedback.co.uk, directionsurveys.co.uk

Just from the names I recognize that’s five major high street banks, a payday loan outfit, several utility companies, travel companies and a major cellphone company that are sending survey email that’s this badly done. And that’s probably just the ones that are being sent from this particular mailserver.
That moment when you type "WTF?" into Google image search
I went back and checked where my bank usually sent email from, and how their authentication was normally set up. The previous mail I got from them was a timely warning about “Phishing” and “Smishing” and “Vishing” warning me to be very careful about clicking on links in mail claiming to be from my bank, for fear of being phished.
It was addressed to “%first name%”.

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Phishing increasingly sophisticated

Phishing is an online threat that’s been around for more than 20 years. I initially heard of it in relation to spammers taking over an AOL account to send out spam. These days phis is more dangerous and more sophisticated. Phishing is not just used to send spam. It’s used to take over elections; it’s used to steal millions of dollars. Experts estimate that globally phishing costs companies over 9 billion dollars a year.
Even in the last two weeks we’ve seen 2 major phishing incidents. One targeted Google Docs, one targeted Docusign. Reading the news reports these are different than many of the more common phishing attacks and, to me, represent an evolution in standard phishing techniques.

The Google attack in early May was an evolution in getting access to a Google account. Instead of directing users to a fake Gmail login page, the phish asked users to allow “Google Docs” (actually an app controlled by the phisher) to access to their Google account.
I’m sure all of you have used an app or website that lets you login with Facebook or Gmail or Twitter. This is all done with a protocol called OAuth. OAuth is also how you give access to mailbox management tools like I discussed a few weeks ago.  Basically, OAuth lets users grant access and permission to a site or application using a second site without revealing their username and password. (It’s more complicated than I want to discuss, but if you’re looking for some information check out some of the sites I’ve found: wikipedia, Varonis blog, Digital Ocean knowledge base, or just search google for oauth.)
The switch from asking for a password to asking for access is, to my mind, a significant change. Now we have to be aware of what we’re authorizing and make sure that app isn’t malicious.
The Docusign phish is another evolution.  As I was looking at the phish I received yesterday I realized that it was sent to a tagged address. A tagged address only Docusign had. None of my other, heavily phished, addresses received the phish. None of Steve’s addresses received the phish. This wasn’t a widespread spray and pray phishing attack. The phishers targeted Docusign users. Yesterday afternoon, Docusign confirmed that someone stole user addresses.
This is a switch from just randomly looking for victims to targeting users of a specific service.
Phishing attacks look for the weakest links to gain access to computers, information, and money. The weakest links are always humans. Phishers have adapted to security measures for the last 20 years. There is zero reason that they won’t continue to adapt.
 
 
 

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Authentication and phishing

Yahoo announced today that they are releasing the Yahoo! Mail Anti-Phishing Platform (YMAP) that will help protect their users from phishing. They have a similar project in place for eBay and PayPal mail, but this will extend to a broader range of companies.

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Fun with opinions

Over the last few weeks I’ve seen a couple people get on mailing lists and make pronouncements about email. It’s great to have opinions and it’s great to share them. But they’re always a little bit right… and a little bit wrong.

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