How bad actors are utilizing the InterPlanetary File Systems (IPFS)

With the continued rise in adoption of cloud services, bad actors are utilizing the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) as a new playing ground for phishing attacks.

In fact, Trustwave SpiderLabs has found that in the past 90 days, more than 3,000 emails contain phishing URLs utilizing IPFS to lead to fake Outlook login and other web pages.

In this Help Net Security video, Karl Sigler, Senior Security Research Manager at Trustwave, talks about how the decentralized P2P network of IPFS makes it the perfect breeding ground for threat actors transferring and storing data – even if the server or network is shut down, the data remains accessible. With this phishing method cyber criminals also have more flexibility to create new types of phishing URLs, and can easily camouflage their activities by hosting their content in a legitimate web hosting service.