Phishing and fraud campaigns abusing trusted infrastructure and communications
Threat actors are increasingly improving phishing success rates by abusing trusted channels and infrastructure rather than relying on generic lures. One observed intrusion hijacked an active executive email thread via a compromised contractor account, allowing the attacker to reply inline with a link to a Microsoft 365 lookalike login flow; analysis of detonated samples indicated use of the EvilProxy adversary-in-the-middle phishkit, with layered anti-bot gating (e.g., Cloudflare Turnstile) and dynamic HTML/PDF content to capture credentials without exploiting software vulnerabilities. Separately, Rapid7 documented a cloud-abuse incident where attackers used compromised AWS credentials to stand up phishing/spam operations using AWS WorkMail, leveraging Amazon’s sender reputation and sidestepping typical SES anti-abuse controls while generating limited, service-native telemetry that can blend into normal administrative activity.
A parallel, large-scale consumer fraud operation aligned with the “PayTool” ecosystem was reported targeting Canadian residents through SMS-driven lures (e.g., unpaid fines) that route victims through high-fidelity impersonations of the Government of Canada, Air Canada, and Canada Post, including province-selection workflows designed to mimic legitimate federal-to-provincial service handoffs before directing victims to localized scam domains. In contrast, LevelBlue SpiderLabs’ write-up is broader sector telemetry on education-targeted attacks (e.g., brute force T1110, credential dumping T1003, Kerberos ticket forgery T1558) and does not describe the same specific phishing/fraud campaigns, though it reinforces that credential theft remains a dominant initial access path across industries.
Timeline
Jan 28, 2026
CloudSEK attributes phishing-kit sales to 'theghostorder01'
CloudSEK assessed that the Canadian impersonation campaign was being commoditized through a phishing-as-a-service model advertised on dark web forums. A threat actor using the handle 'theghostorder01' was identified as selling kits mimicking services such as Ontario driver's license renewal and targeting Interac e-Transfer credentials.
Jan 28, 2026
CloudSEK reports PayTool-aligned fraud clusters targeting Canadians
CloudSEK reported interconnected fraud clusters impersonating the Government of Canada, Canada Post, and Air Canada to steal personal and financial data from Canadian citizens. The operation used SMS lures, SEO poisoning, typosquatting, province-specific payment phishing pages, and rotating domains, and was assessed as part of the PayTool phishing ecosystem.
Jan 27, 2026
Rapid7 publicly discloses AWS WorkMail abuse technique
Rapid7 published its investigation showing that attackers can abuse AWS WorkMail inside compromised AWS accounts to bypass SES anti-abuse controls and send phishing email with reduced visibility because WorkMail SMTP activity does not generate CloudTrail events. The report also recommended guardrails such as blocking unused WorkMail with SCPs and tightening WorkMail and SES permissions.
Jan 27, 2026
Attackers pivot to AWS WorkMail to bypass SES sandbox limits
Rather than wait for SES approval, the attackers created AWS WorkMail organizations, verified domains through SES APIs invoked by WorkMail, and provisioned mailbox users to send email immediately to external recipients. Rapid7 found this pivot let the actors use victim-owned AWS infrastructure for phishing while avoiding SES sandbox friction and some logging visibility.
Jan 27, 2026
Attackers attempt to expand SES sending capacity via AWS support
After finding Amazon SES constrained by sandbox restrictions and unverified identities, the attackers opened an AWS support case requesting removal from the SES sandbox and a quota increase to 100,000 emails per day. This showed an effort to legitimize and scale phishing or spam operations from the compromised AWS environment.
Jan 27, 2026
Attackers abuse exposed AWS keys to build phishing infrastructure
In a cloud abuse incident investigated by Rapid7, threat actors used compromised long-term AWS access keys to access a victim AWS account, perform IAM and SES reconnaissance, and escalate privileges by creating a new IAM user with AdministratorAccess and console access. The attackers were likely validating leaked credentials from public exposure such as repositories scanned with tools like TruffleHog.
Jan 10, 2026
Analysts link thread-hijacking phishing to wider campaign
In early January 2026, analysis connected a supply-chain phishing incident involving a hijacked executive email thread to a broader campaign through infrastructure overlap. Testing also identified use of the EvilProxy phishkit with anti-bot measures, credential interception, and session-token theft.
Dec 1, 2025
Phishing campaign targeting Middle Eastern organizations begins
A broader phishing campaign that later used hijacked enterprise email threads was assessed as active since December 2025, primarily targeting organizations in the Middle East. The activity used rented infrastructure and phishing techniques consistent with phishing-as-a-service operations.
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1 months ago
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