Cybersecurity researchers are drawing consideration to a brand new marketing campaign that is utilizing legit generative synthetic intelligence (AI)-powered web site constructing instruments like DeepSite AI and BlackBox AI to create duplicate phishing pages mimicking Brazilian authorities companies as a part of a financially motivated marketing campaign.
The exercise entails the creation of lookalike websites imitating Brazil’s State Division of Visitors and Ministry of Training, which then trick unsuspecting customers into making unwarranted funds by means of the nation’s PIX cost system, Zscaler ThreatLabz stated.
These fraudulent websites are artificially boosted utilizing search engine marketing (search engine marketing) poisoning strategies to boost their visibility, thereby rising the chance of success of the assault.
“Supply code evaluation reveals signatures of generative AI instruments, resembling overly explanatory feedback meant to information builders, non-functional components that will usually work on an genuine web site, and tendencies like TailwindCSS styling, which is completely different from the standard phishing kits utilized by menace actors,” Zscaler’s Jagadeeswar Ramanukolanu, Kartik Dixit, and Yesenia Barajas stated.
The tip purpose of the assaults is to serve bogus kinds that gather delicate private info, together with Cadastro de Pessoas Físicas (CPF) numbers, Brazilian taxpayer identification numbers, residential addresses, and persuade them to make a one-time cost of 87.40 reals ($16) to the menace actors through PIX beneath the guise of finishing a psychometric and medical examination or safe a job provide.
To additional improve the legitimacy of the marketing campaign, the phishing pages are designed such that they make use of staged knowledge assortment by progressively requesting further info from the sufferer, mirroring the habits of the genuine web sites. The collected CPF numbers are additionally validated on the backend via an API created by the menace actor.
“The API area recognized throughout evaluation is registered by the menace actor,” Zscaler stated. “The API retrieves knowledge related to the CPF quantity and robotically populates the phishing web page with info linked to the CPF.”
That stated, the corporate famous that it is potential the attackers could have acquired CPF numbers and person particulars by means of knowledge breaches or by leveraging publicly uncovered APIs with an authentication key, after which used the knowledge to extend the credibility of their phishing makes an attempt.
“Whereas these phishing campaigns are at present stealing comparatively small quantities of cash from victims, related assaults can be utilized to trigger way more harm,” Zscaler famous.
Mass mailing Marketing campaign Distributes Efimer Trojan to Steal Crypto
Brazil has additionally grow to be the main focus of a malspam marketing campaign that impersonates attorneys from a serious firm to ship a malicious script referred to as Efimer and steal a sufferer’s cryptocurrency. Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky stated it detected the mass mailing marketing campaign in June 2025, with early iteration of the malware relationship all the best way again to October 2024 and unfold through contaminated WordPress web sites.
“These emails falsely claimed the recipient’s area identify infringed on the sender’s rights,” researchers Vladimir Gursky and Artem Ushkov stated. “This script additionally contains further performance that helps attackers unfold it additional by compromising WordPress websites and internet hosting malicious recordsdata there, amongst different strategies.”
Efimer, in addition to propagating through compromised WordPress websites and e-mail, leverages malicious torrents as distribution vector, whereas speaking with its command-and-control (C2) server through the TOR community. Moreover, the malware can lengthen its capabilities with further scripts that may brute-force passwords for WordPress websites and harvest e-mail addresses from specified web sites for future e-mail campaigns.
“The script receives domains [from the C2 server] and iterates by means of every one to search out hyperlinks and e-mail addresses on the web site pages,” Kaspersky stated, noting it additionally serves as a spam module engineered to fill out contact kinds on track web sites.
Within the assault chain documented by Kaspersky, the emails come fitted with ZIP archives containing one other password-protected archive and an empty file with a reputation specifying the password to open it. Current throughout the second ZIP file is a malicious Home windows Script File (WSF) that, when launched, infects the machine with Efimer.
On the similar time, the sufferer is displayed an error message stating the doc can’t be opened on the system as a distraction mechanism. In actuality, the WSF script saves two different recordsdata, “controller.js” (the trojan part) and “controller.xml,” and creates a scheduled process on the host utilizing configuration extracted from “controller.xml.”
The “controller.js” is a clipper malware that is designed to interchange cryptocurrency pockets addresses the person copies to their clipboard with the pockets handle beneath the attacker’s management. It could actually additionally seize screenshots and execute further payloads acquired from the C2 server by connecting over the TOR community after putting in a TOR proxy shopper on the contaminated pc.
Kaspersky stated it additionally found a second model of Efimer that, together with clipper options, additionally incorporates anti-VM options and scans internet browsers like Google Chrome and Courageous for cryptocurrency pockets extensions associated to Atomic, Electrum, and Exodus, amongst others, and exfiltrates the outcomes of the search again to the C2 server.
The marketing campaign is estimated to have impacted 5,015 customers, primarily based on its telemetry, with a majority of the infections concentrated in Brazil, India, Spain, Russia, Italy, Germany, the U.Ok., Canada, France, and Portugal.
“Whereas its major purpose is to steal and swap cryptocurrency wallets, it could possibly additionally leverage further scripts to compromise WordPress websites and distribute spam,” the researchers stated. “This enables it to ascertain an entire malicious infrastructure and unfold to new gadgets.”
“One other attention-grabbing attribute of this Trojan is its try and propagate amongst each particular person customers and company environments. Within the first case, attackers use torrent recordsdata as bait, allegedly to obtain common films; within the different, they ship claims in regards to the alleged unauthorized use of phrases or phrases registered by one other firm.”