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Topic

Adversary-in-the-Middle Phishing

Real-time relay of victim authentication through attacker infrastructure to harvest credentials, MFA codes and the resulting session.

Current stories

securityOne report1 publisher

Templated event invites and doctored posters lure Taiwan researchers into a live Google login relay

Cisco Talos says UAT-11985 used fake event invitations to phish Taiwanese research staff through a kit that relays Google logins and MFA challenges live. For the people those invitations target, the useful control is a second factor the relay cannot pass along.

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+5
Incentives35
Confidence55
securityConfirmed3 publishers

Storm-3121 callers demand an urgent passkey update to harvest Microsoft 365 session tokens

Microsoft has tracked passkey- and SSO-themed help desk impersonation since May 2026, with the calls steering employees into adversary-in-the-middle proxies and device-code grants that hand over live Microsoft 365 sessions.

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 25%
Operator
Operator 63%
Investor
Investor 12%

Reality

Evidence72
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+10
Incentives35
Confidence70
securityOne report1 publisher

Attackers used legitimate remote management tools in 45% of endpoint incidents Huntress logged

Huntress found legitimate remote management software abused in 45% of the endpoint incidents it logged in the first quarter of 2026. A rogue copy can behave like IT's approved one, so defenders have to know which tools are sanctioned and how each install arrived.

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption55
Hype gap+5
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence55
securityConfirmed7 publishers

TA419 courts AI policy experts before phishing their cloud accounts

Proofpoint says China-aligned TA419 has posed as a former White House official and an Anthropic employee to phish AI policy experts since at least April 2025. The first approach asks for nothing; the credential-stealing link follows only after a target replies.

Perspective Coverage

7 publishers
Builder
Builder 28%
Operator
Operator 59%
Investor
Investor 13%

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives30
Confidence65
buildOne report1 publisher

China-aligned TA419 phishes US AI policy experts through a proxy that captures Microsoft session cookies

Proofpoint says China-aligned TA419 has phished US AI policy experts since April 2025 with a proxy that captures Microsoft session cookies and bypasses MFA. Its fix is passkeys plus out-of-band checks on unsolicited expert outreach.

Publishers:dev.to

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+5
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence50
buildOne report1 publisher

MFA-relaying proxy kits make up 44.6% of phishing techniques in Microsoft's 2026 report

Microsoft's 2026 Digital Defense Report puts MFA-relaying proxy kits at 44.6% of phishing techniques, as phishing rose to 23% of its incident cases. SMS codes and push approvals pass straight through those proxies, so protecting company email now means passkeys or FIDO2 keys, starting with admins and finance staff.

Publishers:dev.to

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+5
Incentives40
Confidence55
securityConfirmed3 publishers

PREY-0058 phones executives to harvest Microsoft 365 session tokens

Arctic Wolf says the cluster it tracks as PREY-0058 deploys no malware at all. A call from fake IT leads to a proxied login page, and the stolen session token comes back from inside the victim's own ASN.

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 17%
Operator
Operator 75%
Investor
Investor 8%

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence60
securityConfirmed3 publishers

BigBear's phishing panel disables WebAuthn in the browser to beat MFA at 258 organizations

CloudSEK took administrator access to the panel and counted 5,137 stolen records coming off 42 VPS nodes into five leasing affiliates' Telegram bots, with the phishing pages dark for three weeks while the panel itself stays reachable.

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 30%
Operator
Operator 60%
Investor
Investor 10%

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption30
Hype gap+25
Incentives40
Confidence60
securityOne report1 publisher

NovaCookies rents real-time Microsoft 365 session theft for $320 a month

Island says the adversary-in-the-middle service runs on at least 755 domains against hundreds of organizations. The session it steals arrives after an authentication the identity provider records as entirely normal.

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption58
Hype gap+18
Incentives65
Confidence55
leadershipOne report1 publisher

Fake helpdesk calls use the passkey rollout as the pretext for Microsoft 365 intrusions

Microsoft has tracked intrusions since May in which callers posing as IT told employees a passkey update was due, then steered them to a phishing page or a device-code prompt. The enrollment step is where the chain starts.

Publishers:csoonline.com

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption35
Hype gap−5
Incentives60
Confidence58
buildOne report1 publisher

A passkey 'upgrade' call ends with the attacker's phone number registered as an MFA method

Microsoft Security Research describes callers posing as IT staff to get a Microsoft 365 session relayed or minted to their own client. The lasting damage comes from the MFA method they then register.

Publishers:dev.to

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption40
Hype gap+15
Incentives55
Confidence55
leadershipOne report1 publisher

Session cookies outnumber plaintext passwords four to one in BigBear 2.0's panel

CloudSEK got inside the BigBear 2.0 administrative panel and found more captured Microsoft 365 session cookies than plaintext passwords, along with code written to switch FIDO2 off on the phishing pages.

Publishers:csoonline.com

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption58
Hype gap+12
Incentives72
Confidence56
securityOne report1 publisher

Microsoft traces four months of Graph-based mail theft to fake passkey helpdesk calls

Since May, intruders posing as IT have walked employees through a passkey update on their personal phones, then registered their own authentication method and pulled mail and files through Graph, SharePoint and Exchange APIs.

Publishers:microsoft.com

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption32
Hype gap+12
Incentives65
Confidence58
securityOne report1 publisher

Jackal IV's 58 arrests cover under a third of the suspects INTERPOL identified

A week of takedowns removed people and froze assets across five separate actions, while the kit that manufactures the stolen Microsoft 365 sessions those crews depend on still sells on Telegram for $320 a month.

Publishers:sentinelone.com

Reality

Evidence28
Adoption52
Hype gap+30
Incentives58
Confidence36
buildOne report1 publisher

NovaCookies turns an MFA approval into a live Microsoft 365 session for $320

Island's write-up describes an adversary-in-the-middle proxy that hands passwords, push approvals and SMS codes to real Microsoft servers, then keeps the cookie Microsoft issues. Origin binding is the only listed control that breaks it.

Publishers:dev.to

Reality

Evidence48
Adoption40
Hype gap+18
Incentives66
Confidence47