New findings have shown that hackers are taking advantage of the upcoming Easter holiday to target phishing emails.

According to Check Point Research (CPR), an aggressive email campaign has been spreading distributing notorious botnet Emotet.

This has helped Emotet hold its position as the most common malware. It currently impacts an estimated 10% of organisations worldwide, double that of February.

Emotet was thought dismantled more than a year ago, but returned in November 2021. Since then, the botnet has since been strengthening its position as the most prevalent malware.

The email campaigns have used various Easter-themed phishing scams to exploit the holiday. These emails were sent to victims all over the world, with one such example using the subject “buona pasqua, happy easter,” yet attached to the email was a malicious XLS file to deliver Emotet.

“Technology has advanced in recent years to such a point where cybercriminals are increasingly having to rely on human trust in order to get through to a corporate network,” said Maya Horowitz, VP Research at Check Point Software.

“By theming their phishing emails around seasonal holidays such as Easter, they are able to exploit the buzz of the festivities and lure victims into downloading malicious attachments that contain malwares such as Emotet.

“In the run up to the Easter weekend, we expect to see more of these scams and urge users to pay close attention, even if the email looks like it’s from a reputable source. Easter isn’t the only public holiday and cybercriminals will continue to deploy the same tactics to inflict harm.”

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In addition to Emotet, CPR found that Agent Tesla, the advanced remote access trojan (RAT), which allow attackers to remotely control an infected computer is the second most prevalent malware, rising from fourth last month.

Agent Tesla’s rise is due to several new mal-spam campaigns delivering the RAT via malicious xlsx/pdf files worldwide. Some of these campaigns have leveraged the Russia/Ukraine war to lure victims.

Horowitz added: “This month we also observed Apache Log4j becoming the number one most exploited vulnerability again. Even after all the talk about this vulnerability at the end of last year, it is still causing harm months after the initial detection. Organizations need to take immediate action to prevent attacks from happening.”

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