{
	"id": "92b02596-3575-491d-9ead-5cba0215f285",
	"created_at": "2026-04-06T00:12:40.609036Z",
	"updated_at": "2026-04-10T03:21:48.867166Z",
	"deleted_at": null,
	"sha1_hash": "3b9ef8f18475019631ff13e987202870e376c7a2",
	"title": "QBot phishing lures victims using US election interference emails",
	"llm_title": "",
	"authors": "",
	"file_creation_date": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z",
	"file_modification_date": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z",
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	"plain_text": "QBot phishing lures victims using US election interference emails\r\nBy Sergiu Gatlan\r\nPublished: 2020-11-04 · Archived: 2026-04-05 13:30:34 UTC\r\nThe Qbot botnet is now spewing U.S. election-themed phishing emails used to infect victims with malicious payloads\r\ndesigned to harvest user data and emails for use in future campaigns.\r\nQbot (aka Qakbot, Pinkslipbot, and Quakbot) is a banking trojan with worm features [1, 2, 3] actively used since at least\r\n2009 to steal financial data and banking credentials, as well as to log user keystrokes, to deploy backdoors, and to drop\r\nadditional malware.\r\nElection interference baits\r\nThe malspam emails recently spotted by Malwarebytes Labs' Threat Intelligence Team are camouflaged as replies in\r\npreviously stolen email threads, a tactic used to add legitimacy in the targets' eyes.\r\nhttps://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/qbot-phishing-lures-victims-using-us-election-interference-emails/\r\nPage 1 of 4\n\n0:00\r\nhttps://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/qbot-phishing-lures-victims-using-us-election-interference-emails/\r\nPage 2 of 4\n\nVisit Advertiser websiteGO TO PAGE\r\nEach of the phishing messages come with malicious Excel spreadsheet attachments disguised as secure DocuSign file\r\nallegedly containing information related to election interference.\r\nThis new template has been adopted to abuse the public's concerns regarding the 2020 US elections' outcome, and to make it\r\neasier for the threat actors to lure potential victims into opening bait documents and enabling macros used to drop malware\r\npayloads.\r\nAfter the Qbot malware is executed and infects the victims' computers, it will reach out to its command and control center to\r\nask for further instructions.\r\n\"In addition to stealing and exfiltrating data from its victims, QBot will also start grabbing emails that will later be used as\r\npart of the next malspam campaigns,\" Malwarebytes' Jérôme Segura and Hossein Jazi explain.\r\nAggressive malware used in targeted campaigns\r\nBesides phishing campaigns, attackers are also often using exploit kits to drop Qbot payloads, with the bot subsequently\r\ninfecting other devices on the victims' network using network share exploits and highly aggressive brute-force attacks that\r\ntarget Active Directory admin accounts.\r\nEven though active for over a decade, the Qbot banking trojan was mostly used in targeted attacks against corporate entities\r\nthat provide a higher return on investment.\r\nAs proof of this, Qbot campaigns have been quite uncommon over time, with researchers detecting one in October 2014, one\r\nin April 2016, and another one in May 2017.\r\nhttps://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/qbot-phishing-lures-victims-using-us-election-interference-emails/\r\nPage 3 of 4\n\nQbot process flow (Malwarebytes)\r\nQbot has also seen a resurgence last year, being dropped as a first stage or as a second stage malware payload by the Emotet\r\ngang, as well as part of a context-aware phishing campaign in March 2019 using hijacked email threads.\r\nDuring 2020, Qbot was used to harvest credentials from customers of dozens of U.S. financial institutions and to deliver\r\nProLock ransomware following Qbot spear-phishing campaigns.\r\nA full list of indicators of compromised (IOCs) including a matrix of MITRE ATT\u0026CK techniques and malware sample\r\nhashes used in this Qbot campaign can be found at the end of the Malwarebytes report.\r\nAutomated Pentesting Covers Only 1 of 6 Surfaces.\r\nAutomated pentesting proves the path exists. BAS proves whether your controls stop it. Most teams run one without the\r\nother.\r\nThis whitepaper maps six validation surfaces, shows where coverage ends, and provides practitioners with three diagnostic\r\nquestions for any tool evaluation.\r\nSource: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/qbot-phishing-lures-victims-using-us-election-interference-emails/\r\nhttps://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/qbot-phishing-lures-victims-using-us-election-interference-emails/\r\nPage 4 of 4",
	"extraction_quality": 1,
	"language": "EN",
	"sources": [
		"ETDA"
	],
	"references": [
		"https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/qbot-phishing-lures-victims-using-us-election-interference-emails/"
	],
	"report_names": [
		"qbot-phishing-lures-victims-using-us-election-interference-emails"
	],
	"threat_actors": [],
	"ts_created_at": 1775434360,
	"ts_updated_at": 1775791308,
	"ts_creation_date": 0,
	"ts_modification_date": 0,
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