In internal emails seen by BleepingComputer, IKEA is warning employees of an ongoing reply-chain phishing cyber-attack targeting internal mailboxes.
These emails are also being sent from other compromised IKEA organizations and business partners.
“There is an ongoing cyber-attack that is targeting Inter IKEA mailboxes. Other IKEA organisations, suppliers, and business partners are compromised by the same attack and are further spreading malicious emails to persons in Inter IKEA,” explained an internal email sent to IKEA employees and seen by BleepingComputer.
“This means that the attack can come via email from someone that you work with, from any external organisation, and as a reply to an already ongoing conversations. It is therefore difficult to detect, for which we ask you to be extra cautious.”
IKEA IT teams warn employees that the reply-chain emails contain links with seven digits at the end and shared an example email.
In addition, employees are told not to open the emails, regardless of who sent them, and to report them to the IT department immediately.
Recipients are also told to tell the sender of the emails via Microsoft Teams chat to report the emails.
Threat actors have recently begun to compromise internal Microsoft Exchange servers using the ProxyShell and ProxyLogin vulnerabilities to perform phishing attacks.
Once they gain access to a server, they use the internal Microsoft Exchange servers to perform reply-chain attacks against employees using stolen corporate emails.
As the emails are being sent from internal compromised servers and existing email chains, there is a higher level of trust that the emails are not malicious.