Trustwave SpiderLabs’ spam traps have identified an increase in threats packaged in password-protected archives with about 96% of these being spammed by the Emotet Botnet. In the first half of 2022, we identified password-protected ZIP files as the third most popular archive format used by cybercriminals to conceal malware.

A new variant of the URSNIF malware, first observed in June 2022, marks an important milestone for the tool. Unlike previous iterations of URSNIF, this new variant, dubbed LDR4, is not a banker, but a generic backdoor (similar to the short-lived SAIGON variant), which may have been purposely built to enable operations like ransomware and data theft extortion. This is a significant shift from the malware’s original purpose to enable banking fraud, but is consistent with the broader threat landscape.

Microsoft discovered an attack where attackers installed a malicious OAuth application in compromised tenants and used their Exchange Online service to launch spam runs.