Vulnerabilities & CVEs Dark Reading 1 month ago

Voice Callers Exploit BYOD to Reach Microsoft 365, Corporate Data

CN
CyberNew Threat Research Desk
• Original Reporting: Dark Reading
CyberNew Threat Intel Assessment
Assessed Severity: CRITICAL
Impacted Surface
Cloud & Distributed Infrastructure
Intelligence Sector
Vulnerabilities & CVEs

Analyst Takeaway

"Initial access brokers (IABs) are phishing employees by calling or texting their personal devices, then exploiting the Microsoft Graph API to perform large-scale corporate data exfiltration. It's almost unavoidable that, in general corporate settings, employees will use personal devices to access company resources. Only the most careful government, research, and other high-value organizations ban..."

Recommended Defense & Mitigation

  • Emergency Patching: Prioritize vendor patches and CVE mitigation across internet-facing assets immediately.
  • Perimeter Audit: Inspect perimeter firewall logs and hunt for unauthorized RCE indicators.
Curated & Verified by CyberNew Threat Intelligence Desk Standard Defense Framework (NIST / MITRE ATT&CK)

Initial access brokers (IABs) are phishing employees by calling or texting their personal devices, then exploiting the Microsoft Graph API to perform large-scale corporate data exfiltration.

It's almost unavoidable that, in general corporate settings, employees will use personal devices to access company resources. Only the most careful government, research, and other high-value organizations ban it entirely, and most security-forward organizations allow it insofar as employees don't use personal devices to engage with sensitive resources. Even this reasonable latter policy is being tested, though, by attackers who know how to maximize seemingly low-risk attack paths.

Since May, Microsoft researchers have tracked at least two threat actors — Storm 3032 and Storm-3121, in its nomenclature — exploiting personal devices to totally bypass companies' authentication security protections. Worse: The two Storms are then likely passing on their earned access to extortion groups, including the nettlesome ShinyHunters. (Microsoft however did not connect any known corporate breaches to these initial access campaigns.)

Related:Identity-Based AI Attack Threatens Security of Enterprise Data

IABs Exploit Personal Devices

Source Verification & Original Intelligence

This threat report was reviewed by CyberNew analysts and cross-referenced with primary security disclosures from Dark Reading.

Primary Advisory →