KrebsOnSecurity lately heard from a reader whose boss’s electronic mail account bought phished and was used to trick one of many firm’s clients into sending a big cost to scammers. An investigation into the attacker’s infrastructure factors to a long-running Nigerian cybercrime ring that’s actively concentrating on established firms within the transportation and aviation industries.
Picture: Shutterstock, Mr. Teerapon Tiuekhom.
A reader who works within the transportation business despatched a tip a couple of current profitable phishing marketing campaign that tricked an government on the firm into coming into their credentials at a pretend Microsoft 365 login web page. From there, the attackers rapidly mined the chief’s inbox for previous communications about invoices, copying and modifying a few of these messages with new bill calls for that had been despatched to among the firm’s clients and companions.
Talking on situation of anonymity, the reader stated the ensuing phishing emails to clients got here from a newly registered area identify that was remarkably much like their employer’s area, and that at the very least considered one of their clients fell for the ruse and paid a phony bill. They stated the attackers had spun up a look-alike area just some hours after the chief’s inbox credentials had been phished, and that the rip-off resulted in a buyer struggling a six-figure monetary loss.
The reader additionally shared that the e-mail addresses within the registration information for the imposter area — roomservice801@gmail.com — is tied to many such phishing domains. Certainly, a search on this electronic mail deal with at DomainTools.com finds it’s related to at the very least 240 domains registered in 2024 or 2025. Just about all of them mimic respectable domains for firms within the aerospace and transportation industries worldwide.
An Web seek for this electronic mail deal with reveals a humorous weblog submit from 2020 on the Russian discussion board hackware[.]ru, which discovered roomservice801@gmail.com was tied to a phishing assault that used the lure of phony invoices to trick the recipient into logging in at a pretend Microsoft login web page. We’ll come again to this analysis in a second.
JUSTY JOHN
DomainTools exhibits that among the early domains registered to roomservice801@gmail.com in 2016 embrace different helpful info. For instance, the WHOIS information for alhhomaidhicentre[.]biz reference the technical contact of “Justy John” and the e-mail deal with justyjohn50@yahoo.com.
A search at DomainTools discovered justyjohn50@yahoo.com has been registering one-off phishing domains since at the very least 2012. At this level, I used to be satisfied that some safety firm certainly had already revealed an evaluation of this specific menace group, however I didn’t but have sufficient info to attract any strong conclusions.
DomainTools says the Justy John electronic mail deal with is tied to greater than two dozen domains registered since 2012, however we will discover tons of extra phishing domains and associated electronic mail addresses just by pivoting on particulars within the registration information for these Justy John domains. For instance, the road deal with utilized by the Justy John area axisupdate[.]web — 7902 Pelleaux Street in Knoxville, TN — additionally seems within the registration information for accountauthenticate[.]com, acctlogin[.]biz, and loginaccount[.]biz, all of which at one level included the e-mail deal with rsmith60646@gmail.com.
That Rsmith Gmail deal with is linked to the 2012 phishing area alibala[.]biz (one character off of the Chinese language e-commerce large alibaba.com, with a unique top-level area of .biz). A search in DomainTools on the telephone quantity in these area information — 1.7736491613 — reveals much more phishing domains in addition to the Nigerian telephone quantity “2348062918302” and the e-mail deal with michsmith59@gmail.com.
DomainTools exhibits michsmith59@gmail.com seems within the registration information for the area seltrock[.]com, which was used within the phishing assault documented in the 2020 Russian weblog submit talked about earlier. At this level, we’re simply two steps away from figuring out the menace actor group.
The identical Nigerian telephone quantity exhibits up in dozens of area registrations that reference the e-mail deal with sebastinekelly69@gmail.com, together with 26i3[.]web, costamere[.]com, danagruop[.]us, and dividrilling[.]com. A Internet search on any of these domains finds they had been listed in an “indicator of compromise” listing on GitHub maintained by Palo Alto Networks‘ Unit 42 analysis group.
SILVERTERRIER
Based on Unit 42, the domains are the handiwork of an enormous cybercrime group primarily based in Nigeria that it dubbed “SilverTerrier” again in 2014. In an October 2021 report, Palo Alto stated SilverTerrier excels at so-called “enterprise e-mail compromise” or BEC scams, which goal respectable enterprise electronic mail accounts by way of social engineering or pc intrusion actions. BEC criminals use that entry to provoke or redirect the switch of enterprise funds for private achieve.
Palo Alto says SilverTerrier encompasses tons of of BEC fraudsters, a few of whom have been arrested in numerous worldwide regulation enforcement operations by Interpol. In 2022, Interpol and the Nigeria Police Power arrested 11 alleged SilverTerrier members, together with a outstanding SilverTerrier chief who’d been flaunting his wealth on social media for years. Sadly, the lure of simple cash, endemic poverty and corruption, and low limitations to entry for cybercrime in Nigeria conspire to supply a continuing stream of latest recruits.
BEC scams had been the seventh most reported crime tracked by the FBI’s Web Crime Grievance Middle (IC3) in 2024, producing greater than 21,000 complaints. Nevertheless, BEC scams had been the second costliest type of cybercrime reported to the feds final 12 months, with almost $2.8 billion in claimed losses. In its 2025 Fraud and Management Survey Report, the Affiliation for Monetary Professionals discovered 63 % of organizations skilled a BEC final 12 months.
Poking at among the electronic mail addresses that spool out from this analysis reveals quite a few Fb accounts for individuals residing in Nigeria or within the United Arab Emirates, a lot of whom don’t seem to have tried to masks their real-life identities. Palo Alto’s Unit 42 researchers reached an identical conclusion, noting that though a small subset of those crooks went to nice lengths to hide their identities, it was often easy to be taught their identities on social media accounts and the key messaging providers.
Palo Alto stated BEC actors have change into way more organized over time, and that whereas it stays simple to search out actors working as a gaggle, the observe of utilizing one telephone quantity, electronic mail deal with or alias to register malicious infrastructure in help of a number of actors has made it way more time consuming (however not unimaginable) for cybersecurity and regulation enforcement organizations to kind out which actors dedicated particular crimes.
“We proceed to search out that SilverTerrier actors, no matter geographical location, are sometimes linked by way of only some levels of separation on social media platforms,” the researchers wrote.
FINANCIAL FRAUD KILL CHAIN
Palo Alto has revealed a helpful listing of suggestions that organizations can undertake to attenuate the incidence and affect of BEC assaults. Lots of these suggestions are prophylactic, akin to conducting common worker safety coaching and reviewing community safety insurance policies.
However one advice — getting acquainted with a course of generally known as the “monetary fraud kill chain” or FFKC — bears particular point out as a result of it gives the only greatest hope for BEC victims who’re in search of to claw again funds made to fraudsters, and but far too many victims don’t comprehend it exists till it’s too late.
Picture: ic3.gov.
As defined in this FBI primer, the Worldwide Monetary Fraud Kill Chain is a partnership between federal regulation enforcement and monetary entities whose goal is to freeze fraudulent funds wired by victims. Based on the FBI, viable sufferer complaints filed with ic3.gov promptly after a fraudulent switch (typically lower than 72 hours) will probably be mechanically triaged by the Monetary Crimes Enforcement Community (FinCEN).
The FBI famous in its IC3 annual report (PDF) that the FFKC had a 66 % success fee in 2024. Viable ic3.gov complaints contain losses of at the very least $50,000, and embrace all information from the sufferer or sufferer financial institution, in addition to a accomplished FFKC type (offered by FinCEN) containing sufferer info, recipient info, financial institution names, account numbers, location, SWIFT, and any further info.
