October 3, 2023

Unveiling ViperSoftX: A Darktrace Investigation

Read about the ViperSoftX threat and how Darktrace's innovative detection methods exposed this cyber intrusion and its potential impacts.

Written by

Zoe Tilsiter

Cyber Analyst

Inside the SOC

Darktrace cyber analysts are world-class experts in threat intelligence, threat hunting and incident response, and provide 24/7 SOC support to thousands of Darktrace customers around the globe. Inside the SOC is exclusively authored by these experts, providing analysis of cyber incidents and threat trends, based on real-world experience in the field.

Written by

Zoe Tilsiter

Cyber Analyst

Oct 2023

Fighting Info-Stealing Malware

The escalating threat posed by information-stealing malware designed to harvest and steal the sensitive data of individuals and organizations alike has become a paramount concern for security teams across the threat landscape. In direct response to security teams improving their threat detection and prevention capabilities, threat actors are forced to continually adapt and advance their techniques, striving for greater sophistication to ensure they can achieve the malicious goals.

What is ViperSoftX?

ViperSoftX is an information stealer and Remote Access Trojan (RAT) malware known to steal privileged information such as cryptocurrency wallet addresses and password information stored in browsers and password managers. It is commonly distributed via the download of cracked software from multiple sources such as suspicious domains, torrent downloads, and key generators (keygens) from third-party sites.

ViperSoftX was first observed in the wild in 2020 [1] but more recently, new strains were identified in 2022 and 2023 utilizing more sophisticated detection evasion techniques, making it more difficult for security teams to identify and analyze. This includes using more advanced encryption methods alongside monthly changes to command-and-control servers (C2) [2], using dynamic-link library (DLL) sideloading for execution techiques, and subsequently loading a malicious browser extension upon infection which works as an independent info-stealer named VenomSoftX [3].

Between February and June 2023, Darktrace detected activity related to the VipersoftX and VenomSoftX information stealers on the networks of more than 100 customers across its fleet. Darktrace DETECT™ was able to successfully identify the anomalous network activity surrounding these emerging information stealer infections and bring them to the attention of the customers, while Darktrace RESPOND™, when enabled in autonomous response mode, was able to quickly intervene and shut down malicious downloads and data exfiltration attempts.

ViperSoftX Attack & Darktrace Coverage

In cases of ViperSoftX information stealer activity observed by Darktrace, the initial infection was caused through the download of malicious files from multimedia sites, endpoints of cracked software like Adobe Illustrator, and torrent sites. Endpoint users typically unknowingly download the malware from these endpoints with a sideloaded DLL, posing as legitimate software executables.

Darktrace detected multiple downloads from such multimedia sites and endpoints related to cracked software and BitTorrent, which were likely representative of the initial source of ViperSoftX infection. Darktrace DETECT models such as ‘Anomalous File / Anomalous Octet Stream (No User Agent)’ breached in response to this activity and were brought to the immediate attention of customer security teams. In instances where Darktrace RESPOND was configured in autonomous response mode, Darktrace was able to enforce a pattern of life on offending devices, preventing them from downloading malicious files. This ensures that devices are limited to conducting only their pre-established expected activit, minimizing disruption to the business whilst targetedly mitigating suspicious file downloads.

The downloads are then extracted, decrypted and begin to run on the device. The now compromised device will then proceed to make external connections to C2 servers to retrieve secondary PowerShell executable. Darktrace identified that infected devices using PowerShell user agents whilst making HTTP GET requests to domain generation algorithm (DGA) ViperSoftX domains represented new, and therefore unusual, activity in a large number of cases.

For example, Darktrace detected one customer device making an HTTP GET request to the endpoint ‘chatgigi2[.]com’, using the PowerShell user agent ‘Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT; Windows NT 10.0; en-US) WindowsPowerShell/5.1.19041.2364’. This new activity triggered a number of DETECT models, including ‘Anomalous Connection / PowerShell to Rare External’ and ‘Device / New PowerShell User Agent’. Repeated connections to these endpoints also triggered C2 beaconing models including:

Compromise / Agent Beacon (Short Period)
Compromise / Agent Beacon (Medium Period)
Compromise / Agent Beacon (Long Period)
Compromise / Quick and Regular Windows HTTP Beaconing
Compromise / SSL or HTTP Beacon

Although a large number of different DGA domains were detected, commonalities in URI formats were seen across affected customers which matched formats previously identified as ViperSoftX C2 communication by open-source intelligence (OSINT), and in other Darktrace investigations.

URI paths for example, were always of the format /api/, /api/v1/, /v2/, or /v3/, appearing to detail version number, as can be seen in Figure 1.

*Figure 1: A Packet Capture (PCAP) taken from Darktrace showing a connection made to a ViperSoftX C2 endpoint containing versioning information, consistent with ViperSoftX pattern of communication.*

Before the secondary PowerShell executables are loaded, ViperSoftX takes a digital fingerprint of the infected machine to gather its configuration details, and exfiltrates them to the C2 server. These include the computer name, username, Operating System (OS), and ensures there are no anti-virus or montoring tools on the device. If no security tool are detected, ViperSoftX then downloads, decrypts and executes the PowerShell file.

Following the GET requests Darktrace observed numerous devices performing HTTP POST requests and beaconing connections to ViperSoftX endpoints with varying globally unique identifiers (GUIDs) within the URIs. These connections represented the exfiltration of device configuration details, such as “anti-virus detected”, “app used”, and “device name”. As seen on another customer’s deployment, this caused the model ‘Anomalous Connection / Multiple HTTP POSTs to Rare Hostname’ to breach, which was also detected by Cyber AI Analyst as seen in Figure 2.

*Figure 2: Cyber AI Analyst’s detection of HTTP POSTs being made to apibiling[.]com, a ViperSoftX C2 endpoint.*

The malicious PowerShell download then crawls the infected device’s systems and directories looking for any cryptocurrency wallet information and password managers, and exfiltrates harvest data to the C2 infrastructure. The C2 server then provides further browser extensions to Chromium browsers to be downloaded and act as a separate stand-alone information stealer, also known as VenomSoftX.

Similar to the initial download of ViperSoftX, these malicious extensions are disguised as legitimate browser extensions to evade the detection of security teams. VenomSoft X, in turn, searches through and attempts to gather sensitive data from password managers and crypto wallets stored in user browsers. Using this information, VenomSoftX is able to redirect crypocurrency transactions by intercepting and manipulating API requests between the sender and the intended recipient, directing the cryptocurrency to the attacker instead [3].

Following investigation into VipersoftX activity across the customer base, Darktrace notified all affected customers and opened Ask the Expert (ATE) tickets through which customer’s could directly contact the analyst team for support and guidance in the face on the information stealer infection.

How did the attack bypass the rest of the security stack?

As previously mentioned, both the initial download of ViperSoftX and the subsequent download of the VenomX browser extension are disguised as legitimate software or browser downloads. This is a common technique employed by threat actors to infect target devices with malicious software, while going unnoticed by security teams traditional security measures. Furthermore, by masquerading as a legitimate piece of software endpoint users are more likely to trust and therefore download the malware, increasing the likelihood of threat actor’s successfully carrying out their objectives. Additionally, post-infection analysis of shellcode, the executable code used as the payload, is made significantly more difficult by VenomSoftX’s use of bytemapping. Bytemapping prevents the encryption of shellcodes without its corresponding byte map, meaning that the payloads cannot easily be decrypted and analysed by security researchers. [3]

ViperSoftX also takes numerous attempts to prevent their C2 infrastructure from being identified by blocking access to it on browsers, and using multiple DGA domains, thus renderring defunct traditional security measures that rely on threat intelligence and static lists of indicators of compromise (IoCs).

Fortunately for Darktrace customers, Darktrace’s anomaly-based approach to threat detection means that it was able to detect and alert customers to this suspicious activity that may have gone unnoticed by other security tools.

Insights/Conclusion

Faced with the challenge of increasingly competent and capable security teams, malicious actors are having to adopt more sophisticated techniques to successfully compromise target systems and achieve their nefarious goals.

ViperSoftX information stealer makes use of numerous tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) designed to fly under the radar and carry out their objectives without being detected. ViperSoftX does not rely on just one information stealing malware, but two with the subsequent injection of the VenomSoftX browser extension, adding an additional layer of sophistication to the informational stealing operation and increasing the potential yield of sensitive data. Furthermore, the use of evasion techniques like disguising malicious file downloads as legitimate software and frequently changing DGA domains means that ViperSoftX is well equipped to infiltrate target systems and exfiltrate confidential information without being detected.

However, the anomaly-based detection capabilities of Darktrace DETECT allows it to identify subtle changes in a device’s behavior, that could be indicative of an emerging compromise, and bring it to the customer’s security team. Darktrace RESPOND is then autonomously able to take action against suspicious activity and shut it down without latency, minimizing disruption to the business and preventing potentially significant financial losses.

Credit to: Zoe Tilsiter, Senior Cyber Analyst, Nathan Lorenzo, Cyber Analyst.

Appendices

References

[1] https://www.fortinet.com/blog/threat-research/vipersoftx-new-javascript-threat

[2] https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/23/d/vipersoftx-updates-encryption-steals-data.html

[3] https://decoded.avast.io/janrubin/vipersoftx-hiding-in-system-logs-and-spreading-venomsoftx/

Darktrace DETECT Model Detections

· Anomalous File / Anomalous Octet Stream (No User Agent)

· Anomalous Connection / PowerShell to Rare External

· Anomalous Connection / Multiple HTTP POSTs to Rare Hostname

· Anomalous Connection / Lots of New Connections

· Anomalous Connection / Multiple Failed Connections to Rare Endpoint

· Anomalous Server Activity / Outgoing from Server

· Compromise / Large DNS Volume for Suspicious Domain

· Compromise / Quick and Regular Windows HTTP Beaconing

· Compromise / Beacon for 4 Days

· Compromise / Suspicious Beaconing Behaviour

· Compromise / Large Number of Suspicious Failed Connections

· Compromise / Large Number of Suspicious Successful Connections

· Compromise / POST and Beacon to Rare External

· Compromise / DGA Beacon

· Compromise / Agent Beacon (Long Period)

· Compromise / Agent Beacon (Medium Period)

· Compromise / Agent Beacon (Short Period)

· Compromise / Fast Beaconing to DGA

· Compromise / SSL or HTTP Beacon

· Compromise / Slow Beaconing Activity To External Rare

· Compromise / Beaconing Activity To External Rare

· Compromise / Excessive Posts to Root

· Compromise / Connections with Suspicious DNS

· Compromise / HTTP Beaconing to Rare Destination

· Compromise / High Volume of Connections with Beacon Score

· Compromise / Sustained SSL or HTTP Increase

· Device / New PowerShell User Agent

· Device / New User Agent and New IP

Darktrace RESPOND Model Detections

· Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena Suspicious File Block

· Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena File then New Outbound Block

· Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena Watched Domain Block

· Antigena / Network / Significant Anomaly / Antigena Significant Anomaly from Client Block

· Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena Suspicious Activity Block

· Antigena / Network / Significant Anomaly / Antigena Breaches Over Time Block

· Antigena / Network / Insider Threat / Antigena Large Data Volume Outbound Block

· Antigena / Network / External Threat / Antigena Suspicious File Pattern of Life Block

· Antigena / Network / Significant Anomaly / Antigena Controlled and Model Breach

List of IoCs

Indicator - Type - Description

ahoravideo-blog[.]com - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

ahoravideo-blog[.]xyz - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

ahoravideo-cdn[.]com - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

ahoravideo-cdn[.]xyz - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

ahoravideo-chat[.]com - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

ahoravideo-chat[.]xyz - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

ahoravideo-endpoint[.]xyz - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

ahoravideo-schnellvpn[.]com - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

ahoravideo-schnellvpn[.]xyz - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

apibilng[.]com - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

arrowlchat[.]com - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

bideo-blog[.]com - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

bideo-blog[.]xyz - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

bideo-cdn[.]com - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

bideo-cdn[.]xyz - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

bideo-chat[.]com - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

bideo-chat[.]xyz - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

bideo-endpoint[.]com - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

bideo-endpoint[.]xyz - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

bideo-schnellvpn[.]com - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

chatgigi2[.]com - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

counter[.]wmail-service[.]com - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

fairu-cdn[.]xyz - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

fairu-chat[.]xyz - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

fairu-endpoint[.]com - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

fairu-schnellvpn[.]com - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

fairu-schnellvpn[.]xyz - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

privatproxy-blog[.]com - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

privatproxy-blog[.]xyz - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

privatproxy-cdn[.]com - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

privatproxy-cdn[.]xyz - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

privatproxy-endpoint[.]xyz - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

privatproxy-schnellvpn[.]com - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

privatproxy-schnellvpn[.]xyz - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

static-cdn-349[.]net - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

wmail-blog[.]com - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

wmail-cdn[.]xyz - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

wmail-chat[.]com - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

wmail-schnellvpn[.]com - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

wmail-schnellvpn[.]xyz - Hostname - ViperSoftX C2 endpoint

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT; Windows NT 10.0; en-US) WindowsPowerShell/5.1.19041.2364 - User Agent -PowerShell User Agent

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

‍Tactic - Technique - Notes

Command and Control - T1568.002 Dynamic Resolution: Domain Generation Algorithms

Command and Control - T1321 Data Encoding

Credential Access - T1555.005 Credentials from Password Stores: Password Managers

Defense Evasion - T1027 Obfuscated Files or Information

Execution - T1059.001 Command and Scripting Interpreter: PowerShell

Execution - T1204 User Execution T1204.002 Malicious File

Persistence - T1176 Browser Extensions - VenomSoftX specific

Persistence, Privilege Escalation, Defense Evasion - T1574.002 Hijack Execution Flow: DLL Side-Loading

Written by

Zoe Tilsiter

Cyber Analyst

Inside the SOC

Written by

Zoe Tilsiter

Cyber Analyst

Senior Product Marketing Manager, Email

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Email

November 28, 2025

From Amazon to Louis Vuitton: How Darktrace Detects Black Friday Phishing Attacks

Why Black Friday Drives a Surge in Phishing Attacks

In recent years, Black Friday has shifted from a single day of online retail sales and discounts to an extended ‘Black Friday Week’, often preceded by weeks of online hype. During this period, consumers are inundated with promotional emails and marketing campaigns as legitimate retailers compete for attention.

Unsurprisingly, this surge in legitimate communications creates an ideal environment for threat actors to launch targeted phishing campaigns designed to mimic legitimate retail emails. These campaigns often employ social engineering techniques that exploit urgency, exclusivity, and consumer trust in well-known brands, tactics designed to entice recipients into opening emails and clicking on malicious links.

Additionally, given the seasonal nature of Black Friday and the ever-changing habits of consumers, attackers adopt new tactics and register fresh domains each year, rather than reusing domains previously flagged as spam or phishing endpoints. While this may pose a challenge for traditional email security tools, it presents no such difficulty for Darktrace / EMAIL and its anomaly-based approach.

In the days and weeks leading up to ‘Black Friday’, Darktrace observed a spike in sophisticated phishing campaigns targeting consumers, demonstrating how attackers combine phycological manipulation with technical evasion to bypass basic security checks during this high-traffic period. This blog showcases several notable examples of highly convincing phishing emails detected and contained by Darktrace / EMAIL in mid to late November 2025.

Darktrace’s Black Friday Detections

Brand Impersonation: Deal Watchdogs’ Amazon Deals

The impersonation major online retailers has become a common tactic in retail-focused attacks, none more so than Amazon, which ranked as the fourth most impersonated brand in 2024, only behind Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Facebook [1]. Darktrace’s own research found Amazon to be the most mimicked brand, making up 80% of phishing attacks in its analysis of global consumer brands.

When faced with an email that appears to come from a trusted sender like Amazon, recipients are far more likely to engage, increasing the success rate of these phishing campaigns.

In one case observed on November 16, Darktrace detected an email with the subject line “NOW LIVE: Amazon’s Best Early Black Friday Deals on Gadgets Under $60”. The email was sent to a customer by the sender ‘Deal Watchdogs’, in what appeared to be an attempt to masquerade as a legitimate discount-finding platform. No evidence indicated that the company was legitimate. In fact, the threat actor made no attempt to create a convincing name, and the domain appeared to be generated by a domain generation algorithm (DGA), as shown in Figure 2.

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Although the email was sent by ‘Deal Watchdogs’, it attempted to impersonate Amazon by featuring realistic branding, including the Amazon logo and a shade of orange similar to that used by them for the ‘CLICK HERE’ button and headline text.

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Figure 1: The contents of the email observed by Darktrace, featuring authentic-looking Amazon branding.

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Darktrace identified that the email, marked as urgent by the sender, contained a suspicious link to a Google storage endpoint (storage.googleapis[.]com), which had been hidden by the text “CLICK HERE”. If clicked, the link could have led to a credential harvester or served as a delivery vector for a malicious payload hosted on the Google storage platform.

Fortunately, Darktrace immediately identified the suspicious nature of this email and held it before delivery, preventing recipients from ever receiving or interacting with the malicious content.

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Figure 2: Darktrace / EMAIL’s detection of the malicious phishing email sent to a customer.

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Around the same time, Darktrace detected a similar email attempting to spoof Amazon on another customer’s network with the subject line “Our 10 Favorite Deals on Amazon That Started Today”, also sent by ‘Deal Watchdogs,’ suggesting a broader campaign.

Analysis revealed that this email originated from the domain petplatz[.]com, a fake marketing domain previously linked to spam activity according to open-source intelligence (OSINT) [2].

Brand Impersonation: Louis Vuitton

A few days later, on November 20, Darktrace / EMAIL detected a phishing email attempting to impersonate the luxury fashion brand Louis Vuitton. At first glance, the email, sent under the name ‘Louis Vuitton’ and titled “[Black Friday 2025] Discover Your New Favorite Louis Vuitton Bag – Elegance Starts Here”, appeared to be a legitimate Black Friday promotion. However, Darktrace’s analysis uncovered several red flags indicating a elaborate brand impersonation attempt.

The email was not sent by Louis Vuitton but by rskkqxyu@bookaaatop[.]ru, a Russia-based domain never before observed on the customer’s network. Darktrace flagged this as suspicious, noting that .ru domains were highly unusual for this recipient’s environment, further reinforcing the likelihood of malicious intent. Subsequent analysis revealed that the domain had only recently registered and was flagged as malicious by multiple OSINT sources [3].

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Figure 3: Darktrace / EMAIL’s detection of the malicious email attempting to spoofLouis Vuitton, originating from a suspicious Russia-based domain.

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Darktrace further noted that the email contained a highly suspicious link hidden behind the text “View Collection” and “Unsubscribe,” ensuring that any interaction, whether visiting the supposed ‘handbag store’ or attempting to opt out of marketing emails, would direct recipients to the same endpoint. The link resolved to xn--80aaae9btead2a[.]xn--p1ai (топааабоок[.]рф), a domain confirmed as malicious by multiple OSINT sources [4]. At the time of analysis, the domain was inaccessible, likely due to takedown efforts or the short-lived nature of the campaign.

Darktrace / EMAIL blocked this email before it reached customer inboxes, preventing recipients from interacting with the malicious content and averting any disruption.

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Figure 4: The suspicious domain linked in the Louis Vuitton phishing email, now defunct.

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Too good to be true?

Aside from spoofing well-known brands, threat actors frequently lure consumers with “too good to be true” luxury offers, a trend Darktrace observed in multiple cases throughout November.

In one instance, Darktrace identified an email with the subject line “[Black Friday 2025] Luxury Watches Starting at $250.” Emails contained a malicious phishing link, hidden behind text like “Rolex Starting from $250”, “Shop Now”, and “Unsubscribe”.

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Figure 5: Example of a phishing email detected by Darktrace, containing malicious links concealed behind seemingly innocuous text.

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Similarly to the Louis Vuitton email campaign described above, this malicious link led to a .ru domain (hxxps://x.wwwtopsalebooks[.]ru/.../d65fg4er[.]html), which had been flagged as malicious by multiple sources [5].

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Figure 6: Darktrace / EMAIL’s detection of a malicious email promoting a fake luxury watch store, which was successfully held from recipient inboxes.

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If accessed, this domain would redirect users to luxy-rox[.]com, a recently created domain (15 days old at the time of writing) that has also been flagged as malicious by OSINT sources [6]. When visited, the redirect domain displayed a convincing storefront advertising high-end watches at heavily discounted prices.

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Figure 7: The fake storefront presented upon visiting the redirectdomain, luxy-rox[.]com.

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Although the true intent of this domain could not be confirmed, it was likely a scam site or a credential-harvesting operation, as users were required to create an account to complete a purchase. As of the time or writing, the domain in no longer accessible .

This email illustrates a layered evasion tactic: attackers employed multiple domains, rapid domain registration, and concealed redirects to bypass detection. By leveraging luxury branding and urgency-driven discounts, the campaign sought to exploit seasonal shopping behaviors and entice victims into clicking.

Staying Protected During Seasonal Retail Scams

The investigation into these Black Friday-themed phishing emails highlights a clear trend: attackers are exploiting seasonal shopping events with highly convincing campaigns. Common tactics observed include brand impersonation (Amazon, Louis Vuitton, luxury watch brands), urgency-driven subject lines, and hidden malicious links often hosted on newly registered domains or cloud services.

These campaigns frequently use redirect chains, short-lived infrastructure, and psychological hooks like exclusivity and luxury appeal to bypass user scepticism and security filters. Organizations should remain vigilant during retail-heavy periods, reinforcing user awareness training, link inspection practices, and anomaly-based detection to mitigate these evolving threats.

Credit to Ryan Traill (Analyst Content Lead) and Owen Finn (Cyber Analyst)

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Appendices

References

1. https://keepnetlabs.com/blog/top-5-most-spoofed-brands-in-2024

2. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/domain/petplatz.com

3. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/domain/bookaaatop.ru

4. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/domain/xn--80aaae9btead2a.xn--p1ai

5. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/e2b868a74531cd779d8f4a0e1e610ec7f4efae7c29d8b8ab32c7a6740d770897?nocache=1

6. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/domain/luxy-rox.com

Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)

IoC – Type – Description + Confidence

petplatz[.]com – Hostname – Spam domain

bookaaatop[.]ru – Hostname – Malicious Domain

xn--80aaae9btead2a[.]xn--p1ai (топааабоок[.]рф) – Hostname - Malicious Domain

hxxps://x.wwwtopsalebooks[.]ru/.../d65fg4er[.]html) – URL – Malicious Domain

luxy-rox[.]com – Hostname - Malicious Domain

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Tactic – Technique – Sub-Technique

Initial Access - Phishing – (T1566)

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About the author

Ryan Traill

Analyst Content Lead

Blog

Email

November 28, 2025

Phishing attacks surge by 620% in the lead-up to Black Friday

Black Friday deals are rolling in, and so are the phishing scams

As the world gears up for Black Friday and the festive shopping season, inboxes flood with deals and delivery notifications, creating a perfect storm for phishing attackers to strike.

Contributing to the confusion, legitimate brands often rely on similar urgency cues, limited-time offers, and high-volume email campaigns used by scammers, blurring the lines between real deals and malicious lookalikes. While security teams remain extra vigilant during this period, the risk of phishing emails slipping in unnoticed remains high, as does the risk of individuals clicking to take advantage of holiday shopping offers.

Analysis conducted by Darktrace’s global analyst team revealed that phishing attacks taking advantage of Black Friday jumped by 620% in the weeks leading up to the holiday weekend, with the volume of phishing attacks expected to jump a further 20-30% during Black Friday week itself.

First observation: Brand impersonation

Brand impersonation was one of the techniques that stood out, with threat actors creating convincing emails – likely assisted by generative AI – purporting to be from household brands including special offers and promotions.

The week before Thanksgiving (15-21 November) saw 201% more phishing attempts mimicking US retailers than the same week in October, as attackers sought to profit off the back of the busy holiday shopping season. It’s not just about volume, either – attackers are spoofing brands people love to shop with during the holidays. Fake emails that look like they’re from well-known retailers like Macy’s, Walmart, and Target were up by 54% just across last week¹. Even so, Amazon is the most impersonated brand, making up 80% of phishing attempts in Darktrace’s analysis of global consumer brands like Apple, Alibaba and Netflix.

While major brands invest heavily in protecting their organizations and customers from cyber-attacks, impersonation is a complicated area as it falls outside of a brand’s legitimate infrastructure and security remit. Retail brands have a huge attack surface, creating plenty of vectors for impersonation, while fake domains, social profiles, and promotional messages can be created quickly and at scale.

Second observation: Fake marketing domains

One prominent Black Friday phishing campaign observed landing in many inboxes uses fake domains purporting to be from marketing sites, like “Pal.PetPlatz.com” and “Epicbrandmarketing.com”.

These emails tend to operate in one of two ways. Some contain “deals” for luxury items such as Rolex watches or Louis Vuitton handbags, designed to tempt readers into clicking. However, the majority are tied to a made-up brand called Deal Watchdogs, which promotes “can’t-miss” Amazon Black Friday offers – designed to lure readers into acting fast to secure legitimate time-sensitive deals. Any user who clicks a link is taken to a fake Amazon website where they are tricked into inputting sensitive data and payment details.

Third observation: The impact of generative AI

The biggest shift seen in phishing in recent years is how much more convincing scam emails are thanks to generative AI. 27% of phishing emails observed by Darktrace in 2024 contained over 1,000 characters², suggesting LLM use in their creation. Tools like ChatGPT and Gemini lower the barrier to entry for cyber-criminals, allowing them to create phishing campaigns that humans find it difficult to spot.

Let’s take a look at a dummy email created by a member of our team without a technical background to illustrate how easy it is to spin up an email that looks and feels like a genuine Black Friday offer. With two prompts, generative AI created a convincing “sale” email that could easily pass as the real thing without requiring any technical skill.

A fake Black Friday deal email created using generative AI, with only two prompts. The image has been pixelated for marketing purposes.

Anyone can now create convincing brand spoofs, and they can do it at scale. That makes it even more important for email users to pause, check the sender, and think before they click.

Why phishing scams hurt consumers and brands

These spoofs don’t just drain shoppers’ bank accounts and grab their personal data. They erode trust, drive people away from real sites, and ultimately hurt brands’ sales. And the fakes keep getting sharper, more convincing, and harder to spot.

Though brands should implement email controls like DMARC to help reduce spoofing, they can’t stop attackers from registering new look-alike domains or using other channels. At the end of the day, human users remain vulnerable to well-crafted scams, particularly when the element of trust from a well-known brand is involved. And while brands can’t prevent all impersonation scams, the fallout can still erode consumer trust and damage their reputation.

In order to limit the impact of these scams, two things need to work together: better education so consumers know when to slow down and look twice, and email security (plus a DMARC solution and an attack surface management tool) that can adapt faster than the attackers – protecting both shoppers and the brands they love.

Tips to stay safe while Black Friday shopping online

On top of retailers implementing robust email security, there are some simple steps shoppers can take to stay safer while shopping this holiday season.

Check every website (twice). Scammers make tiny changes you can barely see. They’ll switch Walmart.com for Waimart.com and most people won’t notice. If something looks even slightly off, check the URL carefully and, if you’re unsure, search for reviews of that exact address.
Santa keeps the real gifts in the workshop. Don’t just click through from sales emails. Use them as a prompt to log in directly to the official app or site, where any genuine notifications will appear.
Look at the payment options. Real retailers usually offer a handful of recognizable ways to pay; if a site pushes only odd methods or upfront transfers, don’t use it.
Be skeptical of Christmas miracles. If a deal on a big-ticket item looks too good to be true, it usually is.
Leave the rushing to the elves. Countdown timers and “last chance” banners are designed to make you click before you think. Take a breath, double-check the sender and the site, and then decide whether to buy.

Email security you can trust this holiday season

The heightened holiday shopping season shines a spotlight on an uncomfortable reality: now that phishing emails are harder than ever to distinguish from legitimate brand communication, traditional spam filters and Secure Email Gateways struggle to keep up. In order to protect against communication-based attacks, organizations require email security that can evaluate the full context of an email – not just surface-level indicators – and stop malicious messages before they reach inboxes.

Darktrace / EMAIL uses Self-Learning AI to understand the behavior and patterns of every user, so it can detect the subtle inconsistencies that reveal a message isn’t genuine, from shifts in tone and writing style to unexpected links, unfamiliar senders, or off-brand visual cues. By identifying these anomalies automatically – and either holding them entirely, or neutralizing malicious elements – it removes the burden from employees to catch near-imperceptible errors and reinforces protection for the entire organization, from staff to customers to brand reputation.

Join our live broadcast on 9 December, where Darktrace will reveal new, industry-first innovations in email security keeping organizations safe this Christmas – from DMARC to DLP. Sign up to the live launch event now.

For a deeper dive into some specific Black Friday phishing campaigns surfaced by the Darktrace threat analysis team, read the follow-up blog here.

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A note on methodology

Insights derive from anonymous live data across 6,500 customers protected by Darktrace / EMAIL. Darktrace created models tracking verified phishing emails that:

Explicitly mentioned Black Friday
Impersonated US retailers popular during the holiday season (Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Macy's, Old Navy, 1800-Flowers)
Impersonated major global brands (Apple, eBay, Netflix, Alibaba and PayPal)

Tracking ran from October 1 to November 21.

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References

[1] Based on live tracking of phishing emails spoofing Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Macy's, Old Navy, 1800-Flowers across email inboxes protected by Darktrace.  November 15 – November 21, 2025

[2] Based on analysis of 30.4 million phishing emails between December 21, 2023, and December 18, 2024. Darktrace Annual Threat Report 2024.

[related-resource]

About the author

Carlos Gray

Senior Product Marketing Manager, Email

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What is ViperSoftX?

ViperSoftX Attack & Darktrace Coverage

How did the attack bypass the rest of the security stack?

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Appendices

References

Darktrace DETECT Model Detections

Darktrace RESPOND Model Detections

List of IoCs

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

From Amazon to Louis Vuitton: How Darktrace Detects Black Friday Phishing Attacks

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A note on methodology

References