The cybersecurity company HUMAN Security has made a significant discovery: it has discovered a sophisticated phishing campaign called “Phish n’ Ships.” An estimated tens of millions of dollars were lost as a result of this complex scheme, which targeted more than 1,000 trustworthy e-commerce companies. It has been in operation since at least 2019 and has influenced hundreds of thousands of internet shoppers, particularly those looking for specialized or difficult-to-find products.
The Satori Threat Intelligence and Research team at HUMAN exposed the scam, which inserts malicious scripts into trustworthy websites by taking use of known flaws, incorrect setups, or compromised administrator credentials. These scripts use a technique called SEO poisoning to produce misleading product listings that appear high in search engine results.
Unaware customers are redirected to fake shops controlled by the attackers when they click on these links. Gavin Reid, Chief Information Security Officer at HUMAN, said, “Phish n’ Ships is particularly cunning because it stole tens of millions of dollars from unwary consumers searching for hard-to-find items.”
With a checkout process that gathers credit card information, the malicious online stores mimic authentic purchasing experiences. Nevertheless, critical financial information about customers is collected, and no products are ever supplied even after payment. BleepingComputer’s analysis claims that the campaign made money by using a number of payment processors.
The usage of simplified Chinese by the hackers in their internal tools added to the intricacy and suggested potential connections to attackers based in mainland China.
Since then, HUMAN and its allies have worked with law police and payment processors, alerting them to the fraud. Although this collaborative effort resulted in the suspension of malicious payment accounts and the removal of false listings from search engines, the Phish n’ Ships operation continues to pose a concern.
According to Lindsay Kaye, HUMAN’s Vice President of Threat Intelligence, “Phish ‘n’ Ships highlights the value across the entire customer journey of a unified approach to digital fraud and abuse.” Even while authorities have made progress, the attackers will probably keep looking for new weaknesses.
Experts in cybersecurity advise customers to exercise caution while making purchases online, particularly around the holidays. Customers should check URLs, pay close attention to strange redirects, and report questionable transactions right away.
Fake product listings are displayed on thousands of hacked e-stores. Details
