phishing campaign is impersonating Apple and informing the user that their Apple account has been suspended due to an invalid payment method, according to researchers at Armorblox.

“Attackers crafted the targeted email in order to convince recipients that they were receiving a legitimate email communication from the brand Apple, Inc.,” the researchers write. “With the subject of the email reading: We’ve suspended your access to apple services, it is clear the attacker’s intention was to establish a sense of urgency in order for the email to be opened. Once opened, unsuspecting victims were met with minimalist email (black with white text) informing recipients that validation of the card associated with his or her apple account failed to validate. The consequence was clear – access to services that use the account would be lost.”

The link in the email will take the user to a spoofed login page designed to steal their credentials.

“The goal of the targeted email was to get victims to go to a fake landing page created in order to exfiltrate sensitive user credentials,” the researchers write. “The information included and language used within the email aims to lead victims to click the main call-to-action (login now) located at the bottom of the email. Once clicked, victims were directed to a fake landing page, which was crafted to mimic a legitimate Captcha security check landing page.”

The researchers note that while the emails bypassed security filters, observant users could recognize this scam by looking at the URL (bachemad[.]com).

“The email was sent from a valid domain,” Armorblox says. “Traditional security training advises looking at email domains before responding for any clear signs of fraud. However, in this case a quick scan of the domain address would not have alerted the end user of fraudulent activity because of the domain’s validity.”

New-school security awareness training can enable your employees to thwart phishing and other social engineering attacks.