Exposing a Global Smishing Operation Across 19 Countries: Governments, Postal Services, and Telecoms Targeted
Essential information
- Published
- 27/05/2026 20:22
- Modified
- 28/05/2026 15:35
- Tags
- 2026-05-27 credential harvesting government impersonation multi-country campaign payment card theft phishing postal service fraud smishing typosquatting
- Related entities
- 27 observables, 21 techniques (mitre), 86 others
Description
A coordinated smishing operation spanning 19 countries across Europe, the Americas, and the Caucasus has been exposed, originating from fraudulent SMS messages impersonating Romania's government payment portal Ghișeul.ro. Investigation revealed 1,628 malicious URLs linked by a single 128-character campaign identifier, targeting government portals, traffic police departments, postal services including DPD and SEUR, tax authorities, and telecommunications providers like T-Mobile and Vodafone. The infrastructure utilizes 32 backend IP addresses distributed across Tencent Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, Cloudflare CDN, and ALEXHOST Moldova. Threat actors employ two distinct phishing templates: a Vue.js single-page application and a Bootstrap-based clone, executing a four-stage credential harvesting process that collects complete payment card details through fabricated traffic fines, toll payments, and delivery notifications.