SocGholish finds success through novel email techniques

November 23, 2022 – Published on SC Magazine

Researchers at Proofpoint revealed more technical details about SocGholish, the malware variant they identified earlier this month, highlighting its noteworthy tactics that differ from traditional phishing campaigns.

According to a Proofpoint blog post Tuesday, SocGholish deviates from the norm by forgoing all the classic staples of modern phishing, such as instilling a sense of urgency, promises of rewards, and misdirection. Instead, researchers found that SocGholish is leveraged in email campaigns with injections on sites, mainly targeting organizations with extensive marketing campaigns or strong Search Engine Optimization.

Drew Schmitt, managing security consultant and lead analyst at GuidePoint Security, expanded on that point, telling SC Media in an email that SocGholish hasn’t been observed using this attack vector before, and their email-based attacks combined with download style infections “is unique in the sense that it explicitly avoids having characteristics that the average user would be able to detect and identify.”

Read More HERE.