MailGuard has intercepted a new phishing scam that is currently circulating, targeting businesses by impersonating the CEO of a South African airline, and exploiting a compromised account to harvest credentials.
The attack highlights once again how quickly cybercriminals can manipulate legitimate communication channels, branding and services to deceive even vigilant users — and reinforces why proactive, cybersecurity planning, services and tools remain critical.
Anatomy of the Attack
The scam email claims to originate from the CEO of FlySafair, and is designed to appear both urgent and credible. The message uses the company’s authentic branding and professional formatting, including the correct address, logo, and contact details.
Here's an example of what the email looks like 👇
The email prompts the recipient to urgently “Review Documents” relating to a fictional tender opportunity, leveraging a common social engineering tactic: pressure combined with a business pretext.
Upon clicking the link, the recipient is first directed to an intermediary site hosted by ZoopSign, a legitimate digital document service.
Here's an example of the ZoopSign page 👇
Here, victims are asked to confirm their name — a tactic to build authenticity and reduce suspicion.
Next, users are taken to a blurred "document" that requires another click to supposedly access shared details.
And this is what the document view ZoopSign screen looks like 👇
Finally, clicking leads to a fake Microsoft OneDrive login page — meticulously designed to harvest corporate email credentials 👇
The phishing page is deceptively authentic, using Microsoft logos, styling, and wording, and is hosted behind Cloudflare to further mask its real location from security scans.
Sophistication and Detection
This scam is of low-mid sophistication and complexity:
- It relies on a compromised sender’s email signature and domain to pass initial credibility checks.
- It impersonates a company CEO to add gravitas to the request.
- It abuses trusted services (ZoopSign and Microsoft branding) to avoid early suspicion, and
- It persistently requests valid login credentials, meaning even small mistakes by users can be exploited.
At the time of detection by MailGuard’s filters, no other major security vendors had flagged the intermediary page as malicious, and only one other vendor had detected the final phishing page.
Why This Attack Matters
This scam is particularly dangerous because it blends legitimate service providers and a highly trusted brand (Microsoft) with a plausible business pretext.
- Targets familiarity and urgency: Many staff are conditioned to act quickly on requests from senior executives or new business opportunities.
- Masks malicious intent through known brands: Making it harder for traditional email filters and untrained users to spot red flags.
- Harvests corporate credentials: A successful attack can lead to business email compromise (BEC), ransomware deployment, and massive financial or reputational loss.
Stay Safe - Know the Signs
MailGuard advises all recipients of these emails to delete them immediately without clicking on any links. Responding or providing personal details can lead to identity theft, data breaches, and financial losses.
🚫 Avoid emails that:
- Aren’t addressed to you personally.
- Are unexpected and urge immediate action.
- Contain poor grammar or miss crucial identifying details.
- Direct you to a suspicious URL that isn’t associated with the genuine company.
Many businesses turn to MailGuard after a near miss or incident. Don't wait until it's too late.
Reach out to our team for a confidential discussion by emailing expert@mailguard.com.au or calling 1300 30 44 30.
One Email Is All That It Takes
All that it takes to devastate your business is a cleverly worded email message that can steal sensitive user credentials or disrupt your business operations. If scammers can trick one person in your company into clicking on a malicious link or attachment, they can gain access to your data or inflict damage on your business.
For a few dollars per staff member per month, you can protect your business with MailGuard's specialist, 'zero zero-day' email security. Special Ops for when speed matters! Our real-time 'zero zero-day', email threat detection amplifies our client’s intelligence, knowledge, security and defence. Talk to a solution consultant at MailGuard today about securing your company's inboxes.
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