Previously unidentified modular loader documented by Expel on 2026-08-20, delivered by Microsoft Teams message from a company-styled onmicrosoft.com address impersonating the target's IT service desk and installed as an MSI presented as a 'PowerShell Cleaner' hosted on Azure blob storage. Six modules blending Python, PowerShell, C# and C++: a system profiler counting AD-joined computers, an in-memory DLL loader, PhishLocker (a counterfeit Windows lock screen harvesting the domain password), TrafficRedirector (a backconnect proxy defeating IP allow-listing), an interactive shell, and an outbound screen-streaming module. Expel assesses at low-to-medium confidence that it belongs to a ransomware group or an access broker selling to one (Expel, 2026-08-20).
36 techniques observed across 2 entries — derived from entry metadata and body evidence, never asserted without a published entry behind it · pinned to MITRE ATT&CK v19.2 · compare on the matrix · Navigator layer (JSON)
Resource Development TA0042
T1584.006Compromise Infrastructure: Web Services×1
Adversaries may compromise access to third-party web services that can be used during targeting. A variety of popular websites exist for legitimate users to register for web-based services, such as GitHub, Twitter, Dropbox, Google, SendGrid, etc. Adversaries may try to take ownership of a legitimate user's access to a web service and use that web service as infrastructure in support of cyber operations. Such web services can be abused during later stages of the adversary lifecycle, such as during Command and Control (Web Service), Exfiltration Over Web Service, or Phishing. Using common services, such as those offered by Google or Twitter, makes it easier for adversaries to hide in expected noise. By utilizing a web service, particularly when access is stolen from legitimate users, adversaries can make it difficult to physically tie back operations to them. Additionally, leveraging compromised web-based email services may allow adversaries to leverage the trust associated with legitimate domains.
Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of existing accounts as a means of gaining Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Compromised credentials may be used to bypass access controls placed on various resources on systems within the network and may even be used for persistent access to remote systems and externally available services, such as VPNs, Outlook Web Access, network devices, and remote desktop. Compromised credentials may also grant an adversary increased privilege to specific systems or access to restricted areas of the network. Adversaries may choose not to use malware or tools in conjunction with the legitimate access those credentials provide to make it harder to detect their presence.
Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of a default account as a means of gaining Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Default accounts are those that are built-into an OS, such as the Guest or Administrator accounts on Windows systems. Default accounts also include default factory/provider set accounts on other types of systems, software, or devices, including the root user account in AWS, the root user account in ESXi, and the default service account in Kubernetes.
Adversaries may leverage external-facing remote services to initially access and/or persist within a network. Remote services such as VPNs, Citrix, and other access mechanisms allow users to connect to internal enterprise network resources from external locations. There are often remote service gateways that manage connections and credential authentication for these services. Services such as Windows Remote Management and VNC can also be used externally.
Adversaries may gain access to a system through a user visiting a website over the normal course of browsing. Multiple ways of delivering exploit code to a browser exist (i.e., Drive-by Target), including:
Adversaries may manipulate application software prior to receipt by a final consumer for the purpose of data or system compromise. Supply chain compromise of software can take place in a number of ways, including manipulation of the application source code, manipulation of the update/distribution mechanism for that software, or replacing compiled releases with a modified version.
Adversaries may send phishing messages to gain access to victim systems. All forms of phishing are electronically delivered social engineering. Phishing can be targeted, known as spearphishing. In spearphishing, a specific individual, company, or industry will be targeted by the adversary. More generally, adversaries can conduct non-targeted phishing, such as in mass malware spam campaigns.
Adversaries may send spearphishing messages via third-party services in an attempt to gain access to victim systems. Spearphishing via service is a specific variant of spearphishing. It is different from other forms of spearphishing in that it employs the use of third party services rather than directly via enterprise email channels.
Adversaries may abuse the Windows Task Scheduler to perform task scheduling for initial or recurring execution of malicious code. There are multiple ways to access the Task Scheduler in Windows. The schtasks utility can be run directly on the command line, or the Task Scheduler can be opened through the GUI within the Administrator Tools section of the Control Panel. In some cases, adversaries have used a .NET wrapper for the Windows Task Scheduler, and alternatively, adversaries have used the Windows netapi32 library and Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to create a scheduled task. Adversaries may also utilize the Powershell Cmdlet `Invoke-CimMethod`, which leverages WMI class `PS_ScheduledTask` to create a scheduled task via an XML path.
T1059.001Command and Scripting Interpreter: PowerShell×1
Adversaries may abuse PowerShell commands and scripts for execution. PowerShell is a powerful interactive command-line interface and scripting environment included in the Windows operating system. Adversaries can use PowerShell to perform a number of actions, including discovery of information and execution of code. Examples include the <code>Start-Process</code> cmdlet which can be used to run an executable and the <code>Invoke-Command</code> cmdlet which runs a command locally or on a remote computer (though administrator permissions are required to use PowerShell to connect to remote systems).
An adversary may rely upon a user opening a malicious file in order to gain execution. Users may be subjected to social engineering to get them to open a file that will lead to code execution. This user action will typically be observed as follow-on behavior from Spearphishing Attachment. Adversaries may use several types of files that require a user to execute them, including .doc, .pdf, .xls, .rtf, .scr, .exe, .lnk, .pif, .cpl, .reg, and .iso.
T1204.004User Execution: Malicious Copy and Paste×1
An adversary may rely upon a user copying and pasting code in order to gain execution. Users may be subjected to social engineering to get them to copy and paste code directly into a Command and Scripting Interpreter. One such strategy is "ClickFix," in which adversaries present users with seemingly helpful solutions—such as prompts to fix errors or complete CAPTCHAs—that instead instruct the user to copy and paste malicious code.
Adversaries may abuse the Windows Task Scheduler to perform task scheduling for initial or recurring execution of malicious code. There are multiple ways to access the Task Scheduler in Windows. The schtasks utility can be run directly on the command line, or the Task Scheduler can be opened through the GUI within the Administrator Tools section of the Control Panel. In some cases, adversaries have used a .NET wrapper for the Windows Task Scheduler, and alternatively, adversaries have used the Windows netapi32 library and Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to create a scheduled task. Adversaries may also utilize the Powershell Cmdlet `Invoke-CimMethod`, which leverages WMI class `PS_ScheduledTask` to create a scheduled task via an XML path.
Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of existing accounts as a means of gaining Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Compromised credentials may be used to bypass access controls placed on various resources on systems within the network and may even be used for persistent access to remote systems and externally available services, such as VPNs, Outlook Web Access, network devices, and remote desktop. Compromised credentials may also grant an adversary increased privilege to specific systems or access to restricted areas of the network. Adversaries may choose not to use malware or tools in conjunction with the legitimate access those credentials provide to make it harder to detect their presence.
Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of a default account as a means of gaining Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Default accounts are those that are built-into an OS, such as the Guest or Administrator accounts on Windows systems. Default accounts also include default factory/provider set accounts on other types of systems, software, or devices, including the root user account in AWS, the root user account in ESXi, and the default service account in Kubernetes.
Adversaries may leverage external-facing remote services to initially access and/or persist within a network. Remote services such as VPNs, Citrix, and other access mechanisms allow users to connect to internal enterprise network resources from external locations. There are often remote service gateways that manage connections and credential authentication for these services. Services such as Windows Remote Management and VNC can also be used externally.
Adversaries may abuse the Windows Task Scheduler to perform task scheduling for initial or recurring execution of malicious code. There are multiple ways to access the Task Scheduler in Windows. The schtasks utility can be run directly on the command line, or the Task Scheduler can be opened through the GUI within the Administrator Tools section of the Control Panel. In some cases, adversaries have used a .NET wrapper for the Windows Task Scheduler, and alternatively, adversaries have used the Windows netapi32 library and Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to create a scheduled task. Adversaries may also utilize the Powershell Cmdlet `Invoke-CimMethod`, which leverages WMI class `PS_ScheduledTask` to create a scheduled task via an XML path.
Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of existing accounts as a means of gaining Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Compromised credentials may be used to bypass access controls placed on various resources on systems within the network and may even be used for persistent access to remote systems and externally available services, such as VPNs, Outlook Web Access, network devices, and remote desktop. Compromised credentials may also grant an adversary increased privilege to specific systems or access to restricted areas of the network. Adversaries may choose not to use malware or tools in conjunction with the legitimate access those credentials provide to make it harder to detect their presence.
Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of a default account as a means of gaining Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Default accounts are those that are built-into an OS, such as the Guest or Administrator accounts on Windows systems. Default accounts also include default factory/provider set accounts on other types of systems, software, or devices, including the root user account in AWS, the root user account in ESXi, and the default service account in Kubernetes.
T1484.001Domain or Tenant Policy Modification: Group Policy Modification×1
Adversaries may modify Group Policy Objects (GPOs) to subvert the intended discretionary access controls for a domain, usually with the intention of escalating privileges on the domain. Group policy allows for centralized management of user and computer settings in Active Directory (AD). GPOs are containers for group policy settings made up of files stored within a predictable network path `\<DOMAIN>\SYSVOL\<DOMAIN>\Policies\`.
T1036.005Masquerading: Match Legitimate Resource Name or Location×1
Adversaries may match or approximate the name or location of legitimate files, Registry keys, or other resources when naming/placing them. This is done for the sake of evading defenses and observation.
Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of existing accounts as a means of gaining Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Compromised credentials may be used to bypass access controls placed on various resources on systems within the network and may even be used for persistent access to remote systems and externally available services, such as VPNs, Outlook Web Access, network devices, and remote desktop. Compromised credentials may also grant an adversary increased privilege to specific systems or access to restricted areas of the network. Adversaries may choose not to use malware or tools in conjunction with the legitimate access those credentials provide to make it harder to detect their presence.
Adversaries may obtain and abuse credentials of a default account as a means of gaining Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, or Defense Evasion. Default accounts are those that are built-into an OS, such as the Guest or Administrator accounts on Windows systems. Default accounts also include default factory/provider set accounts on other types of systems, software, or devices, including the root user account in AWS, the root user account in ESXi, and the default service account in Kubernetes.
Adversaries may reflectively load code into a process in order to conceal the execution of malicious payloads. Reflective loading involves allocating then executing payloads directly within the memory of the process, vice creating a thread or process backed by a file path on disk (e.g., Shared Modules).
Adversaries may impersonate a trusted person or organization in order to persuade and trick a target into performing some action on their behalf. For example, adversaries may communicate with victims (via Phishing for Information, Phishing, or Internal Spearphishing) while impersonating a known sender such as an executive, colleague, or third-party vendor. Established trust can then be leveraged to accomplish an adversary’s ultimate goals, possibly against multiple victims.
T1484.001Domain or Tenant Policy Modification: Group Policy Modification×1
Adversaries may modify Group Policy Objects (GPOs) to subvert the intended discretionary access controls for a domain, usually with the intention of escalating privileges on the domain. Group policy allows for centralized management of user and computer settings in Active Directory (AD). GPOs are containers for group policy settings made up of files stored within a predictable network path `\<DOMAIN>\SYSVOL\<DOMAIN>\Policies\`.
Adversaries may attempt to access credential material stored in the process memory of the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS). After a user logs on, the system generates and stores a variety of credential materials in LSASS process memory. These credential materials can be harvested by an administrative user or SYSTEM and used to conduct Lateral Movement using Use Alternate Authentication Material.
Adversaries may attempt to access or create a copy of the Active Directory domain database in order to steal credential information, as well as obtain other information about domain members such as devices, users, and access rights. By default, the NTDS file (NTDS.dit) is located in <code>%SystemRoot%\NTDS\Ntds.dit</code> of a domain controller.
Adversaries may mimic common operating system GUI components to prompt users for credentials with a seemingly legitimate prompt. When programs are executed that need additional privileges than are present in the current user context, it is common for the operating system to prompt the user for proper credentials to authorize the elevated privileges for the task (ex: Bypass User Account Control).
Adversaries may attempt to position themselves between two or more networked devices using an adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) technique to support follow-on behaviors such as Network Sniffing, Transmitted Data Manipulation, or replay attacks (Exploitation for Credential Access). By abusing features of common networking protocols that can determine the flow of network traffic (e.g. ARP, DNS, LLMNR, etc.), adversaries may force a device to communicate through an adversary controlled system so they can collect information or perform additional actions.
Adversaries may attempt to subvert Kerberos authentication by stealing or forging Kerberos tickets to enable Pass the Ticket. Kerberos is an authentication protocol widely used in modern Windows domain environments. In Kerberos environments, referred to as “realms”, there are three basic participants: client, service, and Key Distribution Center (KDC). Clients request access to a service and through the exchange of Kerberos tickets, originating from KDC, they are granted access after having successfully authenticated. The KDC is responsible for both authentication and ticket granting. Adversaries may attempt to abuse Kerberos by stealing tickets or forging tickets to enable unauthorized access.
Adversaries may try to gather information about registered local system services. Adversaries may obtain information about services using tools as well as OS utility commands such as <code>sc query</code>, <code>tasklist /svc</code>, <code>systemctl --type=service</code>, and <code>net start</code>. Adversaries may also gather information about schedule tasks via commands such as `schtasks` on Windows or `crontab -l` on Linux and macOS.
Adversaries may attempt to get a listing of other systems by IP address, hostname, or other logical identifier on a network that may be used for Lateral Movement from the current system. Functionality could exist within remote access tools to enable this, but utilities available on the operating system could also be used such as Ping, <code>net view</code> using Net, or, on ESXi servers, `esxcli network diag ping`.
Adversaries may attempt to get information about running processes on a system. Information obtained could be used to gain an understanding of common software/applications running on systems within the network. Administrator or otherwise elevated access may provide better process details. Adversaries may use the information from Process Discovery during automated discovery to shape follow-on behaviors, including whether or not the adversary fully infects the target and/or attempts specific actions.
An adversary may attempt to get detailed information about the operating system and hardware, including version, patches, hotfixes, service packs, and architecture. Adversaries may use this information to shape follow-on behaviors, including whether or not the adversary fully infects the target and/or attempts specific actions. This behavior is distinct from Local Storage Discovery which is an adversary's discovery of local drive, disks and/or volumes.
Adversaries may use Valid Accounts to interact with a remote network share using Server Message Block (SMB). The adversary may then perform actions as the logged-on user.
Adversaries may use stolen application access tokens to bypass the typical authentication process and access restricted accounts, information, or services on remote systems. These tokens are typically stolen from users or services and used in lieu of login credentials.
Adversaries may transfer tools or other files between systems in a compromised environment. Once brought into the victim environment (i.e., Ingress Tool Transfer) files may then be copied from one system to another to stage adversary tools or other files over the course of an operation.
Adversaries may mimic common operating system GUI components to prompt users for credentials with a seemingly legitimate prompt. When programs are executed that need additional privileges than are present in the current user context, it is common for the operating system to prompt the user for proper credentials to authorize the elevated privileges for the task (ex: Bypass User Account Control).
Adversaries may attempt to take screen captures of the desktop to gather information over the course of an operation. Screen capturing functionality may be included as a feature of a remote access tool used in post-compromise operations. Taking a screenshot is also typically possible through native utilities or API calls, such as <code>CopyFromScreen</code>, <code>xwd</code>, or <code>screencapture</code>.
Adversaries may target an Exchange server, Office 365, or Google Workspace to collect sensitive information. Adversaries may leverage a user's credentials and interact directly with the Exchange server to acquire information from within a network. Adversaries may also access externally facing Exchange services, Office 365, or Google Workspace to access email using credentials or access tokens. Tools such as MailSniper can be used to automate searches for specific keywords.
T1213.002Data from Information Repositories: Sharepoint×1
Adversaries may leverage the SharePoint repository as a source to mine valuable information. SharePoint will often contain useful information for an adversary to learn about the structure and functionality of the internal network and systems. For example, the following is a list of example information that may hold potential value to an adversary and may also be found on SharePoint:
Adversaries may attempt to position themselves between two or more networked devices using an adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) technique to support follow-on behaviors such as Network Sniffing, Transmitted Data Manipulation, or replay attacks (Exploitation for Credential Access). By abusing features of common networking protocols that can determine the flow of network traffic (e.g. ARP, DNS, LLMNR, etc.), adversaries may force a device to communicate through an adversary controlled system so they can collect information or perform additional actions.
Adversaries may use a connection proxy to direct network traffic between systems or act as an intermediary for network communications to a command and control server to avoid direct connections to their infrastructure. Many tools exist that enable traffic redirection through proxies or port redirection, including HTRAN, ZXProxy, and ZXPortMap. Adversaries use these types of proxies to manage command and control communications, reduce the number of simultaneous outbound network connections, provide resiliency in the face of connection loss, or to ride over existing trusted communications paths between victims to avoid suspicion. Adversaries may chain together multiple proxies to further disguise the source of malicious traffic.
Adversaries may destroy data and files on specific systems or in large numbers on a network to interrupt availability to systems, services, and network resources. Data destruction is likely to render stored data irrecoverable by forensic techniques through overwriting files or data on local and remote drives. Common operating system file deletion commands such as <code>del</code> and <code>rm</code> often only remove pointers to files without wiping the contents of the files themselves, making the files recoverable by proper forensic methodology. This behavior is distinct from Disk Content Wipe and Disk Structure Wipe because individual files are destroyed rather than sections of a storage disk or the disk's logical structure.
Adversaries may overwrite or corrupt the flash memory contents of system BIOS or other firmware in devices attached to a system in order to render them inoperable or unable to boot, thus denying the availability to use the devices and/or the system. Firmware is software that is loaded and executed from non-volatile memory on hardware devices in order to initialize and manage device functionality. These devices may include the motherboard, hard drive, or video cards.
Adversaries may wipe or corrupt raw disk data on specific systems or in large numbers in a network to interrupt availability to system and network resources. With direct write access to a disk, adversaries may attempt to overwrite portions of disk data. Adversaries may opt to wipe arbitrary portions of disk data and/or wipe disk structures like the master boot record (MBR). A complete wipe of all disk sectors may be attempted.
active-threatsSynkLoader pairs a fake Windows lock screen with a backconnect proxy, so the stolen domain password is used from the victim's own address
deep-diveBACS report: the public sector remains the largest share of Swiss mandatory CI reports at 19.4%, and basic hygiene would have stopped the Poland sabotage
Expel published an analysis on 2026-08-20 of SynkLoader, a loader it found on 2026-08-18 while investigating an endpoint-detection alert on a scheduled task in a client network, and for which it could find no prior public reference (Expel, 2026-08-20). The name is a play on its breadth — Expel describes it as an "everything but the kitchen sink" approach — and the reason it belongs in front of a public-sector defender is the delivery, not the tooling: the operator arrives over Microsoft Teams, from a <username>@<company>.onmicrosoft.com address (the default mail domain Microsoft 365 assigns a tenant), posing as the target's own IT service desk under a fabricated staff name, and persuades the user to download and install an MSI presented as a "PowerShell Cleaner" and hosted on Azure blob storage — giving the download the appearance of coming from Microsoft. That inverts the direction staff are trained to be suspicious in: the lure is not an external email but an internal-looking chat from support.
Six modules follow, and Expel notes the chain "ships a long chain of attack tools, which bridge multiple separate programming languages, with some modules using as many as three programming languages at once." A system profiler loads a C# module carrying the name of a Microsoft Visual C++ runtime library, which exports functions to run PowerShell in memory through an embedded Python interpreter, and collects hostname, current user, privilege level, running processes, installed services, the Active Directory domain name and — the detail Expel leans on — a count of AD-joined computers. A persistence module is reached through a second fake-runtime-named DLL that maps libraries into memory without writing them to disk, and the way it installs its scheduled task is a deliberate evasion rather than an implementation detail: Expel documents it registering the task through the Task Scheduler COM interface rather than the command-line utility, specifically to sidestep behavioural detections that inspect command-line arguments or watch for the scheduled-task binary being invoked. That matters for hunting, because the usual high-value signal — a suspicious schtasks command line — is exactly what this build avoids producing. PhishLocker renders a counterfeit full-screen Windows lock screen to steal the user's system login credentials, going as far as retrieving the machine's real lock-screen background image from its own on-disk location and re-focusing itself to defeat Alt+Tab; Expel's analysis host gave it away because the fake mimicked Windows 11 while the machine ran Windows 10, producing visible mismatches in clock and icon placement, password-box theming and the absence of the background blur Windows applies when the password prompt has focus. TrafficRedirector is a backconnect proxy using a protocol resembling HTTP CONNECT: it dials out to the operator, waits for an address and port, and then forwards traffic — which Expel states "can enable the threat actors to connect to internet services using the infected machine IP address, bypassing corporate IP allow-listing," and equally lets the operator reach internal services that only listen on the LAN. An interactive shell polls one endpoint for commands and posts results to another. A screen-streaming module written in Python connects outward rather than listening, compresses screenshots and forwards mouse and keyboard input into the live session — notably not a hidden-desktop implementation, so the activity would be visible to a logged-on user; Expel assesses from its unusually formal comments and the absence of any matching open-source project that it was likely AI-assisted.
The two halves that matter together are PhishLocker and TrafficRedirector. Expel's own framing: "When combined with the system password phishing model, threat actors can use the infected user's username and password to log into both internal and external company systems, all without triggering alerts based on logins from unknown IPs or geolocations." A cleartext domain password is also worth more than a hash here because single sign-on turns it into access across every federated application, without the constraints of pass-the-hash or Kerberos relay. Expel assesses at low-to-medium confidence that the toolkit belongs to a ransomware group or an initial-access broker selling to one, resting that on the AD-computer count — which matters most to an actor whose profit scales with the size of the network it disrupts — and on the loader's resemblance to others previously used by such groups. Build timestamps place the components around late July 2026, and one module's debug path leaked the developer's local account name.
Triage: a real IT service desk contacting a user over Teams and asking them to install something is not unusual, which is what makes this work — the discriminators are tenant and provenance, not behaviour. Genuine internal support messages come from a sender inside the organisation's own verified domain, not from an onmicrosoft.com default-domain address belonging to a different tenant, and genuine software arrives through the organisation's own management or software-distribution channel rather than as an operator-supplied link to consumer-facing cloud storage. On the endpoint, an MSI that installs an embedded Python interpreter and DLLs bearing Visual C++ runtime names outside a legitimate application directory is the anomaly; the runtime names are the masquerade, so the signal is the location and the installing parent, not the filename. For the lock-screen module, the honest discriminator is that Windows never asks a user to re-authenticate through a newly launched application: a full-screen credential prompt whose owning process is not the operating system's own logon UI is a fake, and a mismatch between the rendered lock-screen style and the host's actual Windows version is what exposed this one.
The loader ships a long chain of attack tools, which bridge multiple separate programming languages, with some modules using as many as three programming languages at once.
It can enable the threat actors to connect to internet services using the infected machine IP address, bypassing corporate IP allow-listing.
When combined with the system password phishing model, threat actors can use the infected user’s username and password to log into both internal and external company systems, all without triggering alerts based on logins from unknown IPs or geolocations.
Switzerland's Bundesamt für Cybersicherheit (BACS) published Halbjahresbericht 2026/I — its semi-annual report on the cyber threat landscape in Switzerland and internationally — on 2026-08-24 (BACS, 2026-08-24). Two numbers frame it. Voluntary reports fell to 27,128 for January–June 2026 against 35,727 in H1 2025, with fraud (10,759), phishing (8,877) and spam (3,965) the most-registered categories. Separately, 200 mandatory reports were processed under the critical-infrastructure notification duty in force since 1 April 2025 — and their sector split is the finding this constituency should read first: the public sector and IT/telecommunications continue to be the most frequent reporters, at 19.4% and 18.6% respectively — BACS's own word is "weiterhin", continuing, so this is a persistent ranking rather than a new development. Among those mandatory reports, unauthorised system access (hacking) is the most-reported attack type at just under 26%, which BACS says consists largely of email accounts compromised through successful phishing and then reused to run further phishing and fraud against others; credential theft follows at 13.5%, with DDoS and data exfiltration tied at 12.7% each, and ransomware in roughly 8% of cases.
Three categories fell sharply, and exactly one of them is given a cause. Reports of fraudulent threatening calls made in the name of authorities fell 64% year on year to 3,817, and BACS credits the tightening of the telecommunications services ordinance against call spoofing — noting the measures likely took effect before they formally came into force. Advertising for online investment fraud fell 89% to 387 and CEO fraud 57% to 258; the report records those two as declines without attributing either to a cause, so neither should be read as evidence that a control worked. Set against that, BACS records attackers using AI systematically to produce tailored, personalised content credibly, including one CEO-fraud case in the period that used a cloned voice of the target's superior to push staff toward fraudulent transfers, and romance-scam identities built with AI-generated images, imitated voices and increasingly deepfake-supported video calls.
On initial access BACS reports no Switzerland-specific tradecraft, only global patterns — and three of them are worth a hunt. Malware by email remains a principal vector with fake invoices the commonest pretext; ClickFix, where the victim is induced to run the malicious command themselves, remains widespread, as does the fake-software-update variant, illustrated by a campaign that told targets to install a Zoom update to join a meeting. In the reporting period BACS identified at least 191 Swiss WordPress sites that attackers had compromised and seeded with malicious JavaScript, which makes a visitor's browser fetch further malicious code automatically — with blockchains increasingly used to host and distribute that code. And in a multi-stage case BACS describes, an employee's business mailbox was buried under email bombing, after which the attackers contacted the victim over Microsoft Teams posing as IT help-desk staff, talked them into granting remote access, and installed malware disguised as an update, citing Unit 42's write-up of the pattern. That is the same delivery chain this pipeline covers today from Expel's SynkLoader case, which is worth noting because a Swiss authority independently placing the pattern in its own caseload raises it from one vendor's incident to an expected local vector. BACS also records several large software-supply-chain compromises with global reach in the period, in which the compromise of widely used open-source projects spread credential-stealing software broadly and Swiss organisations were among those affected — citing the Trivy tag compromise, ground this store already holds. Elsewhere it notes attackers defeating multi-factor authentication through intercepted session tokens, device-code phishing and reverse proxies, and an international shift away from technical complexity toward the principle "log in, not break in": rather than intruding without authorisation, attackers increasingly try to obtain legitimate credentials and use them.
The Poland case study — where basic controls, not advanced defence, were the missing layer. The report's second chapter is a full anatomy of the coordinated wave of 29 December 2025 against Polish energy assets, an incident this store tracks. The Polish CERT's public attribution is of the attack infrastructure to Static Tundra, a suspected Russian state actor previously linked to energy-sector espionage — infrastructure, not the operation itself — and BACS then extends that with its own hedge, recording the Poland incident as the first publicly documented sabotage operation in which the group was apparently involved. Targets ran from 30 wind and photovoltaic parks through a large combined heat and power plant supplying heat to around 500,000 people, to a manufacturing company. The attackers went for the distributed control systems used to operate infrastructure remotely rather than the turbines and generators themselves, and at the renewables sites concentrated on the grid connection point — effectively the operator's digital control room for steering and remote monitoring.
How they got in is the part that should change a Swiss operator's priorities. Alongside exploitation of known unpatched vulnerabilities, remote-access points were exposed directly to the internet without multi-factor authentication, the same passwords were reused across multiple devices, and in several cases devices still carried the manufacturer's factory default passwords ("auf den Geräten noch die werkseitigen Standardpasswörter des Herstellers eingestellt" — in several cases the devices still had the manufacturer's factory default passwords set). Firewalls, servers and a range of OT devices were affected: controllers, remote terminal units reached over SSH, intelligent electronic devices such as protection and control relays, and Windows-based HMI workstations running a SCADA suite. Some of those systems handed the attackers system-administrator rights and so unrestricted control. Destruction was then achieved several ways: corrupting controller firmware so devices hung in an endless reboot loop, deleting operating-system files so they could not boot, and resetting other components to factory settings while changing their network configuration so they became unreachable — with wiper malware additionally deployed on the Windows control machines.
The heat plant was hit entirely through the office IT network without touching its industrial control systems, via the perimeter firewall using accounts again unprotected by MFA. There the actors took their time: over roughly a month they mapped which systems could reach the plant's industrial controls — enumerating processes, network connections, routing tables and the ARP cache, and probing file systems on machines whose names contained "scada" — then quietly stole credentials to impersonate legitimate users, including an attempt to dump the LSASS process, a forged Kerberos ticket built with a public tool, and a dump of the entire Active Directory database via ntds.dit. On 29 December they pushed the DynoWiper malware to workstations using Group Policy Objects, the same mechanism administrators use to deploy software centrally — and an endpoint detection and response product caught and blocked it before it did broad damage. A slightly modified build failed too, as did direct overwriting of server disks and manipulation of the storage system's RAID configuration. At the third victim, a manufacturer that appears to have been chosen opportunistically, the attackers did not have to defeat the perimeter firewall at all: its configuration including passwords had been stolen in an earlier, unrelated incident and was freely available on a criminal forum. Once in, they established durable access by planting automated routines on the firewall that periodically retrieved valid credentials and weakened account security settings — including disabling MFA — piping the output to a Slack channel for convenience, then moved laterally over an SSL VPN tunnel using penetration-testing tooling and deployed a second wiper, LazyWiper, again through Group Policy from a network share. In all three cases stolen credentials drove lateral movement, and — the detail most worth carrying — the same credentials were used to reach the victims' on-premises and cloud services including Exchange, Teams and SharePoint, where the actors searched specifically for files and mail concerning technical operations and ICS, OT and SCADA systems. BACS notes the campaign required substantial manual effort rather than the AI and automation the wider trend points to, and reads the timing as an opportunistic capability demonstration — signalling — rather than a strategically chosen moment, precisely because the exploited weaknesses were so basic. Its conclusion is explicit: basic cybersecurity measures, not advanced defensive technology, would have been the key to preventing these attacks — strong unique passwords, consistent MFA, network segmentation and timely patching.
For Switzerland specifically, BACS argues the exposure is not symmetrical. Large grid connection points here are for the most part better isolated than Poland's, but that assessment excludes the large number of smaller private feed-in installations, which are permanently connected to the internet and to the manufacturer's cloud — and it cites the National Test Institute for Cybersecurity's study of energy-management systems for private photovoltaic installations as establishing the resulting dependencies and broad attack surface. It also draws a supply-chain lesson from a March 2026 case in which Iran-linked attackers claimed to have wiped all reachable devices of a US medical-device manufacturer by factory reset: the victim was not the most strategically relevant target available, but the attack carried a public message — and Swiss business customers of that manufacturer were affected downstream, unable to place their next order through established channels.
The Dream Job playbook, measured in Swiss cases. The third chapter documents crypto theft run through a staged recruitment process against Swiss individuals and companies in the crypto, blockchain and Web3 sectors, which BACS assesses resembles patterns other authorities have attributed to actors operating on behalf of the DPRK — the campaigns tracked publicly as Operation Dream Job and, in its newer variant, Contagious Interview. The actors first identify people in key positions with privileged access to systems and funds — an independent software developer, or the founder of a crypto organisation — then profile the target's preferred technology stack, personal interests, investment intentions, access to company funds and wallet size. The approach comes on LinkedIn from a well-connected, polished headhunter with an offer that is hard to refuse: to earn a generous six-figure salary a developer need only run a test application and fix its bugs, which means fetching code from a repository that silently compromises their system. For less technical targets the lure is tailored differently — a venture capitalist hunting the next unicorn, or a well-paid operations-manager role for a back-office employee — and runs through a video interview on genuine conferencing software where the connection appears to drop, the interviewer persuasively proposes a quick hotfix to repair the tool, and the "fix" pulls trojanised software dependencies or downloads a second-stage payload named OtterCookie or BeaverTail. Those payloads execute only in memory, harvest credentials, tokens and wallet keys to the operators' infrastructure, and often lead to a bespoke DPRK backdoor for persistence; BACS notes no case has been reported of any other known actor using those specific samples. The attackers then attempt lateral movement into the victim's employer network to steal further assets.
In Switzerland such reports have risen steadily over five years to more than 20 confirmed cases, with victims often connected to the crypto industry in roles from engineer to executive, and losses running "von einigen Tausend bis hin zu rund 60 Millionen Schweizer Franken" (from a few thousand up to around 60 million Swiss francs). BACS is contacted weekly by targets who spot the approach in time — and received just as many reports from victims who realised only afterwards. It expects the true figure to be considerably higher, and names the reason as a structural one rather than a technical one: shame, information asymmetry and lack of awareness. The asymmetry it stresses is between employee and employer. Staff have little incentive to tell their employer about a security breach arising from a job search, which buys the attackers time to work laterally — and BACS has seen cases where several employees of the same company were approached, on the reasonable assumption that they would not compare notes with each other.
Triage: for the Dream Job chain the discriminator is sequence and endpoint role, not the sample. A developer workstation fetching and building an unfamiliar external repository is routine; the same host doing so shortly after an inbound recruiter contact, followed by an in-memory payload reaching out to previously unseen infrastructure and then authenticating to internal systems, is the chain. For the conferencing variant, the tell is a user-run "hotfix" during or just after a video call on legitimate software — a genuine conferencing client updates itself through its own updater and does not ask a user to paste or execute a repair command. BACS's own reporting-behaviour finding is the operational corollary: because the initial compromise arrives through a private job search, the employer usually learns late or not at all, so make it explicitly safe and expected for staff to report a suspicious recruitment approach without implying fault — the report's evidence is that several employees at one company were approached and none compared notes.
auf den Geräten noch die werkseitigen Standardpasswörter des Herstellers eingestellt.
Höhe von einigen Tausend bis hin zu rund 60 Millionen Schweizer Franken.
Statt unautorisiert in ein System einzudringen, versuchen die Angreifer zunehmend,
Bundesamt für Cybersicherheit (BACS)
annual-report24 Aug 09:10Zsingle-source · national CERTOpen finding ↗