Hackers Exploit Social Engineering to Gain Remote Access in Just 5 Minutes

Cybersecurity experts are raising alarms over a sophisticated social engineering attack that allowed threat actors to compromise corporate systems in under five minutes, according to a recent incident response investigation by NCC Group’s Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) team.

The attack began with threat actors impersonating legitimate IT support personnel, targeting approximately twenty employees within an organization.

Through carefully crafted social engineering tactics, the attackers successfully convinced two users to grant remote access to their workstations using Windows’ built-in QuickAssist remote support tool.

Once the victims provided access, the attackers moved with alarming speed and precision.

Within minutes of establishing the remote connection, they executed a series of PowerShell commands that downloaded offensive tooling, deployed malware, and established persistent access to the compromised systems.

Lightning-Fast System Compromise

The attackers’ methodology demonstrated sophisticated technical knowledge and preparation.

They immediately executed PowerShell scripts that downloaded malicious payloads from external servers ...