Cyberattackers are hiding behind the QuickBooks brand to disguise their malicious activity, researchers are warning. The effort is a “double-spear” approach that packs a one-two punch: Stealing phone numbers and making off with cash via bogus credit-card payments.
The popular accounting software allows customers to sign up for cloud accounts, from which they can send out requests for payment, invoices, and statements, all coming from the quickbooks.intuit.com domain. According to an analysis from Avanan, cybercrooks are taking advantage of this to send out malicious versions of QuickBooks documents — and email security filters, having determined that the address isn’t spooked and comes from an “allowed” domain, pass the messages right on to inboxes.