I have been almost got, a couple of times. I'm not sure, but I may have realized that I got got, about 0.5 seconds after clicking[0], and was able to lock down, before they were able to grab it.
We shouldn't have, and we do take it seriously now.
Use passkeys for everything, like Thomas says.
I’d like to write a follow-up that covers authentication apps/devices, but I need to do some research, and find free versions.
> They just rely on you being busy, or out, or tired, and just not checking closely enough
For example, BitWarden has spent the past month refusing to auto fill fields for me. Bugs are really not uncommon at all, I'd think my password manager is broken before I thought I'm getting phished (which is exactly how they get you).
Luckily the only things I don't use passkeys or hardware keys for are things I don't care about, so I can't even remember what was phished. It goes to show, though, that that's what saved me, not the password manager, not my strong password, nothing.
A few years ago, I managed to get our InfoSec head phished (as a test). No one is safe :)
For everyone reading though, you should try fly. Unaffiliated except for being a happy customer. 50 lines of toml is so so much better than 1k+ lines of cloudformation.
We will get to this though.
Code-based 2FA, on the other hand, is completely useless against phishing. If I'm logging in, I'm logging in, and you're getting my 2FA code (regardless of whether it's coming from an SMS or an app).
The key here is the hacker must create the most incisive, scary email that will short circuit your higher brain functions and get you to log in.
I should have realized the fact that bitwarden did not autofill and take that as a sign.
It's always possible to have issues, of course, and to make mistakes. But there's a risk profile to this kind of stuff that doesn't align well with how certain people work. Yet those same people will jump on these to fix it up!
Blaming some attribute about user as why they fell for a phishing attempt is categorically misguided.
> the 1Password browser plugin would have noticed that “members-x.com” wasn’t an “x.com” host.
But shared accounts are tricky here, like the post says it's not part of their IdP / SSO and can't be, so it has to be something different. Yes, they can and should use Passkeys and/or 1password browser integration, but if you only have a few shared accounts, that difference makes for a different workflow regardless.
One of the most memorable things they shared is they'd throw USB sticks in the parking lot of the company they were pentesting and somebody would always put the thing into a workstation to see what as on it and get p0wned.
Phishing isn't really that different.
Great reminder to setup Passkeys: https://help.x.com/en/managing-your-account/how-to-use-passk...
There are a _lot_ of drivers for devices on a default windows install. There are a _lot more_ if you allow for Windows Update to install drivers for devices (which it does by default). I would not trust all of them to be secure against a malicious device.
I know this is not how stuxxnet worked (instead using a vulnerability in how LNK files were shown in explorer.exe as the exploit), but that just goes to show how much surface there is to attack using this kind of USB stick.
And yeah, people still routinely plug random USBs in their computers. The average person is simultaneously curious and oblivious to this kind of threat (and I don't blame them - this kind of threat is hard to explain to a lay person).
The avenue for catching this is that the password manager’s autofill won’t work on the phishing site, and the user could notice that and catch that it’s a malicious domain
Obviously SSO-y stuff is _better_, but autofill seems important for helping to prevent this kind of scam. Doesn't prevent everything of course!
Since this attack happened despite Kurt using 1Password, I'm really not all that receptive to the idea that 1Password is a good answer to this problem.
We can always make mistakes of course. And yeah, sometimes we just haven't done something.
Whether that’s via a hotkey or not seems totally irrelevant.
I'm don't know much about crypto so I'm not sure what makes them call the scam 'not very plausible' and say it 'probably generated $0 for the attackers', is that something that can be verified by checking the wallet used in that fake landing page?
Every system is only as secure as its weakest link. If the company's CEO is idiotic enough to pull credentials from 1Password and manually copy-past them on a random website whose domain does not match the service that issued it, what is to say they won't do the same for an MFA token?
That’s what makes it phishing-resistant.
With this setup, you can't fuck up.
tru tru
The instant they use the shitty non-word "impactful," every other wordlike noise that comes out of their mouth or anus can and should be ignored.
We also ended up dropping our email security provider because they consistently missed these. We evaluated/trialed almost a dozen different providers and finally found one that did detect every X phishing email! (Check Point fyi, not affiliated)
It was actually embarrassing for most of those security companies because the signs of phishing are very obvious if you look.
You gotta take the Legos away from the CEO! Being CEO means you stop doing the other stuff! Sorry!
And yes they have their silly disclaimer on their blog, but this is Yet Another "oh lol we made a whoopsie" tone that they've taken in the past several times for "real" issues. My favorite being "we did a thing, you should have read the forums where we posted about it, but clearly some of you didn't". You have my e-mail address!
Please.... please... get real comms. I'm tired of the "oh lol we're just doing shit" vibes from the only place I can _barely_ recommend as an alternative to Heroku. I don't need the cuteness. And 60% of that is because one of your main competitors has a totally unsearchable name.
Still using fly, just annoyed.
The "CEO" thing is just a running joke. Kurt's an engineer. Any of us could have been taken by this. I joke about this because I assume everybody gets the subtext, which is that anything you don't have behind phishing-resistant authentication is going to get phished. You apparently took it on the surface level, and believe I'm actually dunking on Kurt. No.
jryio•1h ago
We would like to think that we're the smart ones and above such low level types of exploits, but the reality is that they can catch us at any moment on a good or bad day.
Good write up