We’ve all seen the emails: A spoofed message from your company’s CFO or a vendor asking you to pay an outstanding invoice. These phishing messages lead to millions of dollars of fraudulent payments every year, and are becoming more realistic all the time. The good news is companies are fighting back: On Tuesday, Microsoft and Coinbase announced they had taken down a phishing network, known as EvilTokens, that has defrauded businesses ranging from real estate firms to banks to healthcare providers.
In a blog post describing the scam, the companies explained that EvilTokens sold a do-it-yourself phishing kit over Telegram designed to exploit Microsoft Outlook email accounts. The kit came with a sinister feature, described by the post as “an AI-powered analyst that mapped trusted relationships, identified who controlled payments, and flagged where fraud was most likely to succeed.”
