The persistent Adwind, a cross-platform malware-as-a-service offering, is back. Many of the Zombie Trojan's phishes in this latest upsurge used "Subject:" lines and social engineering schemes centered on finance-related business documents.

Tampa Bay, Fla. cybersecurity firm KnowBe4 spotted the resurgence in mid-October. Adwind, which has been around since 2012, uses items such as invoices, purchase orders, payment instructions, contracts, and requests for quotations to embed malware.

KnowBe4 CEO, Stu Sjowerman, noted in a blog, "Almost two years ago we took note of two different write-ups on the Adwind (aka AlienSpy) remote access trojan (RAT), one by McAfee and the other by Fidelis Security." He added those pieces caught their attention because one particular Adwind variant, Jsocket, had popped on their own radar following the release of their Phish Alert Button, which enabled KnowBe4 customers' employees to report suspected phishing emails directly from Outlook.

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Roy Urrico

Roy W. Urrico specializes in articles about financial technology and services for Credit Union Times, as well as ghostwriting, copywriting, and case studies. Also: writer/editor of a semi-annual newsletter for Association for Financial Technology since 1997 and history projects funded by the U.S Interior Department, National Park Service and Warren County (N.Y.).