Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

Cookie Theft Malware Used to Hijack YouTube Accounts

Google says it has disrupted phishing attacks in which threat actors were attempting to use cookie theft malware to hijack YouTube accounts and abuse them to promote cryptocurrency scams.

Google says it has disrupted phishing attacks in which threat actors were attempting to use cookie theft malware to hijack YouTube accounts and abuse them to promote cryptocurrency scams.

As part of these campaigns, which have been ongoing since 2019, hackers recruited on a Russian-speaking forum targeted thousands with phishing emails that promised fake collaboration opportunities.

The scammers sent their phishing messages to the email addresses that YouTube channel owners make public for business purposes, Google explains.

After gaining the target’s trust, the hackers would send a URL, either via email or a PDF on Google Drive, promising legitimate software but which instead took the victim to a malware landing page.

Once executed, the malware steals cookies from the victim’s browser using a smash-and-grab technique. The attackers then use the cookies to hijack the victim’s session and take over their account, which is either sold on the dark web (for between $3 and $4,000, depending on the number of subscribers), or repurposed for cryptocurrency scams.

Malware used in these attacks included Azorult, Grand Stealer, Kantal, Masad, Nexus stealer, Predator The Thief, RedLine, Raccoon, Vikro Stealer, and Vidar, alongside open source tools such as Sorano and AdamantiumThief. The malware could steal both passwords and cookies.

In furtherance of their scheme, the adversaries registered roughly 15,000 accounts, as well as domains associated with fake companies, and more than 1,000 websites that were used to deliver malware.

Google says that its action against this malicious activity has included blocking 1.6 million messages the attackers sent to their victims. The Internet search giant also displayed roughly 62,000 Safe Browsing warnings for the identified phishing pages, blocked 2,400 files, and restored roughly 4,000 impacted accounts.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

“With increased detection efforts, we’ve observed attackers shifting away from Gmail to other email providers (mostly email.cz, seznam.cz, post.cz and aol.com). Moreover, to protect our users, we have referred the below activity to the FBI for further investigation,” Google says.

Related: Vast Majority of Phishing and Malware Campaigns Are Small-Scale and Short-Lived

Related: Chinese Threat Actor Uses Browser Extension to Hack Gmail Accounts

Written By

Ionut Arghire is an international correspondent for SecurityWeek.

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Understand how to go beyond effectively communicating new security strategies and recommendations.

Register

Join us for an in depth exploration of the critical nature of software and vendor supply chain security issues with a focus on understanding how attacks against identity infrastructure come with major cascading effects.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Cybercrime

The changing nature of what we still generally call ransomware will continue through 2023, driven by three primary conditions.

Cybercrime

As it evolves, web3 will contain and increase all the security issues of web2 – and perhaps add a few more.

Cybercrime

A recently disclosed vBulletin vulnerability, which had a zero-day status for roughly two days last week, was exploited in a hacker attack targeting the...

Cybercrime

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group informed some customers last week that their online accounts had been breached by hackers.

Cybercrime

Zendesk is informing customers about a data breach that started with an SMS phishing campaign targeting the company’s employees.

Artificial Intelligence

The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 has demonstrated the potential of AI for both good and bad.

Cybercrime

Satellite TV giant Dish Network confirmed that a recent outage was the result of a cyberattack and admitted that data was stolen.

Cybercrime

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft calls attention to a series of zero-day remote code execution attacks hitting its Office productivity suite.