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- Market & Momentum - 08/18/2025
Market & Momentum - 08/18/2025
Ransomware gangs are climbing the supply chain, phishing is evolving beyond the inbox, and AI is fueling both sides of the fight. This week’s weather forecast: cloudy with a high chance of compromise if you don’t act.
J.W. Croley
August 18, 2025
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Cybercriminals are shifting from single-point attacks to compound strategies — hitting MSPs for scale, pairing AI reconnaissance with phishing for speed, and exploiting collaboration tools to bypass defenses. Think of it less like whack-a-mole, more like a coordinated storm front moving across multiple vectors.
Trend | Likelihood | What to Watch |
|---|---|---|
AI-assisted phishing & deepfakes | 8 | Lures using fake prompts, voices, or CAPTCHAs |
Ransomware-as-a-Service on MSPs | 7 | Attacks like Akira, Lynx exploiting service providers |
Credential harvesting automation | 8 | 36k/sec scan rates, MFA bypass toolkits |
Collaboration app exploits | 6 | Teams/SharePoint as footholds into enterprises |
Browser-based HEAT attacks | 5 | Phishing URLs outside traditional email vectors |
ClickFix phishing surge — Attackers disguising malicious links as “error prompts” or “CAPTCHA verifications”; incidents rose 400% this month.
MSP-targeted RaaS campaigns — Akira and Lynx ransomware groups doubled down on managed service providers, affecting hundreds of downstream clients.
AI-powered credential theft — Automated scanning rates hit 36,000 probes per second, with living-off-the-land tactics masking activity.
Microsoft Teams RCE (CVE-2025-53783) — Exploit kits now integrate this vuln; attackers can execute arbitrary code in chats.
HEAT-style phishing — Non-email vectors (QR, SMS, disguised URLs) bypass standard security gateways.
Social engineering convergence — Campaigns now chain voice deepfakes + phishing + smishing in a single playbook.
Supply chain scaling — Ransomware operators find MSPs a more profitable pivot than hospitals or schools.
Speed through automation — Recon and credential theft no longer take weeks — they happen in minutes via AI-driven scanning.
Collaboration as the soft spot — Attacks on Teams/SharePoint show collaboration tools are the new perimeter.
Detection blind spots — Traditional filters can’t catch HEAT attacks or deepfake-enabled vishing; defenders need new lenses.
AI phishing: Mandate phishing-resistant MFA; run a 15-minute refresher on recognizing fake “fix prompts” this week.
MSP ransomware: Require every MSP/vendor to provide proof of segmentation, MFA, and offline backups.
Automated credential theft: Audit external exposure points; enable throttling/rate-limits where possible.
Collab app exploits: Validate Teams patch compliance across all tenants; alert on unusual message injection or deletion.
HEAT phishing: Enforce browser isolation or sandboxing for high-risk users; block access to unclassified domains.
Last week, INTERPOL announced its AI-driven cyber task force intercepted 50,000 stolen accounts before they could be sold!
A reminder that defenders win when they invest in speed and automation, too.
The battlefield is now automated, AI-enhanced, and psychology-first.
Stay alert, train hard, and patch even harder.
J.W.
(Forward to your CISO & Add to Board Briefing.)
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