Crime-as-a-Service Makes Advanced Phishing Attacks Easier For Amateurs

CaaS (Crime as a Service) is a practice where veteran hackers sell tools and knowledge required to perform a cybercrime. Generally, CaaS is used for executing phishing attacks. Phishing is one of the easiest ways to hack into any organization for any hacker. Earlier, to perform a phishing attack needed an experienced threat actor’s technical proficiency and knowledge of social engineering. But, with the rise of CaaS, any normal individual with no prior knowledge of cyberattacks can become a hacker. 

CaaS provides an amateur attacker with anything required to perform their personal phishing attack, varying from branded email templates to detailed target lists. There is also an option for hackers to pay for already compromised servers, it saves them from the fear of getting tracked. By minimizing risks to get caught, the trend has made it simple to carry out a cyberattack. However, it has become a major inconvenience for organizations that are becoming targets. Besides this, CaaS offers technical advantages, with the help of downloaded templates, noob attackers can execute safe attacks that will safely land in any employee’s inbox. 

By using sophisticated methods like inspection blocking, content encryption, and hidden URL’s in attachments to avoid detection. This enables hackers to perform high-level advanced attacks, which has become a serious issue for organizations. Besides being easy to execute, phishing campaigns are also highly effective. Phishing attacks carried out using CaaS tools are built to target employees, which makes it difficult for organizations. The attacker uses social engineering techniques to exploit end-users, by gaining trust and creating a feeling of immediacy to reply. 

Hackers can use open-source intelligence to steal data from organization websites, past breaches, and social media to execute successful spear-phishing campaigns. HelpNetSecurity says “Crime-as-a-Service has made phishing an even more attractive method of attack for cybercriminals, by making it more accessible and less labor-intensive. Why spend months looking for an organization’s security vulnerabilities when you can hit them with a ready-made phishing attack? It’s also made phishing campaigns more easily scalable because it takes criminals takes less time and effort to execute their attacks.”