Category Archives: Phishing

SANS Sees Phishers Use Tricky Hyphens in URLs

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To a phisher, one tiny hyphen can make a big mark.

SANS Technology Institute Dean of Research Johannes Ullrich alerted users to a “clever” phishing tactic that uses a URL containing a “com-” domain prefix. With that tiny, easy-to-miss hyphen, threat actors can disguise a malicious destination.

Ullrich noted on the SANS site that the phishing tactic was placed into fraudulent messages alerting a user of unpaid tolls. (The FBI warned the public of toll trolls in April 2024, when there were over 2,000 complaints of attacks using fake text messages.)

How the “.com-” tactic works. A legitimate site involving Florida’s toll system (SunPass) would involve a forward slash and look something like: “sunpass.com/tolls.”

In instances discovered by Ullrich and shared on the SANS site, the phisher registers for and receives a domain that begins with “com-,” followed by seemingly random letters, then ending with a top-level domain, like .info, .top, .xyz, and even .com.

To a reader, the phishy URL appears as something like: “sunpass.com-[random letters].top”—a tricky difference to notice when you’re quickly looking on a tiny phone screen and it appears that you owe toll money.

Fraud jobs. URL obfuscation is a favorite tactic of opportunistic threat actors, who register mimicking domains to trick fans of events like the Super Bowl or the Olympics. (Business administration company CSC identified 5,000 unique domain registrations mimicking well-known sportsbooks, between Jan. 1, 2023, and Dec. 24, 2024, for example.)

According to the FTC, government impersonation scammers led to $618 million in losses in 2023, up from $497 million in 2022 and $428 million in 2021.

Dash money. Ullrich told IT Brew that he continues to see “com-” domains registered: 315 on Feb. 11, 428 on Feb. 10, and 269 on Feb 9. (The sites are often short-lived and quickly shut down as fraudulent, he added.)

Many of the questionable domains point to the same IP address, Ullrich said, suggesting one actor is registering and rotating between them.

Ullrich also shared with IT Brew a new twist on the hyphen-ishing trend: A “com.-” domain prefix with a “.com” ending to the URL, and a “case number” in between to convince targeted users that the sender is from an IT support team.

“They can use any prefix for the domain to impersonate arbitrary .com domains,” Ullrich told us in an email.

In his Feb. 5 post, Ullrich advised IT pros to review DNS queries for these kinds of prefixes.

SOURCE ARTICLE:

https://www.itbrew.com/stories/2025/02/18/sans-sees-phishers-use-tricky-hyphens-in-urls?mbcid=38663986.101742&mblid=0526c530a3f5&mid=bfeacb7fd34941195bb37df6366acc6f&utm_campaign=itb&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=morning_brew

Phishing Evolves Beyond Email, Becomes Latest Android App Threat

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There are plenty of phish in the sea, and the latest ones have little interest in your email inbox.

In 2024, Malwarebytes detected more than 22,800 phishing apps on Android, according to the recent 2025 State of Malware report. Of those malicious apps, 5,200 could subvert one of the strongest security practices available today, called “multifactor authentication,” by prying into basic text messages sent to a device. Another 4,800 could even read information from an Android device’s “Notifications” bar to obtain the same info.

These “Android phishing apps” may sound high-tech, but they are not. They don’t crack into password managers or spy on passwords entered for separate apps. Instead, they present a modern wrapper on a classic form of theft: Phishing.

By disguising themselves as legitimate apps—including for services like TikTok, Spotify, and WhatsApp—Android phishing apps can trick victims into typing in their real usernames and passwords on bogus login screens that are controlled entirely by cybercriminals. If enough victims unwittingly send their passwords, the cyber thieves may even bundle the login credentials for sale on the dark web. Once the passwords are sold, the new, malicious owners will attempt to use individual passwords for a variety of common online accounts—testing whether, say, an email account password is the same one used for a victim’s online banking system, their mortgage payment platform, or their Social Security portal.

The volume of these apps and their capabilities underscore the importance of securing yourself and your devices. With vigilance, safe behavior, and some extra support, you can avoid Android phishing apps and protect your accounts from cybercriminals.

Same trick, new delivery

For more than a decade, phishing was often understood as an email threat. Cybercriminals would send emails disguised as legitimate communications from major businesses, such as Netflix, Uber, Instagram, Google, and more. These emails would frequently warn recipients about a problem with their accounts—a password needed to be updated, or a policy change required a login.

But when victims followed the links within these malicious emails, they’d be brought to a website that, while appearing genuine, would actually be in complete control of cybercriminals. Fooled by similar color schemes, company logos, and familiar layouts, victims would “log in” to their account by entering their username and password. In reality, those usernames and passwords would just be delivered to cybercriminals on the other side of the website.

There never was a problem with a user’s account, and there never was a real request for information from the company. Instead, the entire back-and-forth was a charade.

Over time, phishing emails have advanced—cybercriminals have stolen credit card details by posing as charities—but so, too, have phishing protections from major email providers, sending many cybercriminal efforts into people’s “spam” inboxes, where the emails are, thankfully, never retrieved.

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