Cybercriminals Use Grammarly to Perfect Phishing Docs: A Hilarious Irony or Just Coincidence?

Threat actors are leveraging the CrowdStrike outage for social engineering, embedding malicious VBA code in Word documents. Remarkably, a custom GrammarlyDocumentId appears in these files. Are cybercriminals using Grammarly for polished phishing? Not quite. It seems they’re just recycling old documents. But hey, even malware…

Hot Take:

So, cybercriminals might be grammar nerds now? Or maybe they’re just recycling old essays for their latest phishing scams. Either way, they’ve got a way with words and malware!

Key Points:

  • Discovery of a malicious Word document (.ASD file) using CrowdStrike outage as bait.
  • Document metadata reveals the presence of a GrammarlyDocumentId, hinting at Grammarly’s potential involvement.
  • Comparison with CrowdStrike’s maldoc shows identical VBA code and fake certificate download.
  • Evidence suggests threat actors are quick to react, with the document created shortly after CrowdStrike’s faulty update.
  • No solid proof that Grammarly was used to correct texts; could be the result of reusing an old document.

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