Vigilance in Action: Monitoring Typosquatting Domains
Cado researchers detected a typosquatting domain mimicking their corporate site, part of a broader campaign targeting tech companies. The malicious domain redirected to the legitimate one, and an accompanying fake X (Twitter) account was created. Cado took swift action, informing staff, blocking emails, and reporting the domain for suspension.
Darktrace cyber analysts are world-class experts in threat intelligence, threat hunting and incident response, and provide 24/7 SOC support to thousands of Darktrace customers around the globe. Inside the SOC is exclusively authored by these experts, providing analysis of cyber incidents and threat trends, based on real-world experience in the field.
Written by
Allan Carchrie
Lead Solutions Engineer
Share
21
Aug 2024
Introduction
In today's digital landscape, cybercriminals are constantly devising new and innovative ways to infiltrate and compromise corporate systems. One such tactic is called typosquatting: the registration of domains that closely resemble a real organization in order to trick users into visiting a fraudulent website. Before any damage could be done, researchers at Cado Security Labs (now part of Darktrace) recently discovered a domain that bore a striking resemblance to the Cado corporate domain during a routine check. In this blog, we will discuss how this domain was identified, and the steps taken following discovery.
Look and you shall find
Monitoring for spoofed domains is a function that helps a threat intel team detect malicious actors preparing their infrastructure for their campaigns. This early detection can prevent potential attacks and protect an organization's reputation and assets from harm.
At Cado Security (now Darktrace), this issue is proactively addressed using a tool called “ dnstwist “ - a powerful domain generation and lookup tool that helps identify domains that could be used as part of phishing attacks. For example, using the corporate domain, cadosecurity.com, dnstwist generated nearly 9,000 permutations of the Cado domain and attempted DNS resolutions of them.
Not if, but when..
During a routine check, Cado discovered that just three days prior, a domain had been registered that contained a character substitution similar to what is seen for typosquatting attacks, highlighting that a potential threat was emerging.
Typosquatting attacks are typically done by deliberately including typos, numbers, or symbols in the domain name that a user might accidentally type or with a quick glance might consider to be legitimate. This might involve adding an extra character, such as "Cadosecurityy.com," or replacing a letter with a similar-looking number or symbol, like "Cado5ecurity.com" or "Cad0security.com" (using a zero instead of the letter 'O'). Another variation of typosquatting is the homoglyph or homograph attack, which uses characters (or glyphs) from other scripts that are very visually similar to register domains that may fool a user. For example, using Cyrillic characters mixed with Latin characters, an attacker might create a domain like "Сadosecurity.com," where the 'C' is replaced with its Cyrillic counterpart, which looks almost identical.
Once this domain was identified, it was quickly discovered that connections to the malicious domain were being redirected to Cado’s legitimate domain. This redirection indicates that the threat actor behind this activity was likely intending to imitate the domain, potentially as part of a future phishing attack.
Upon further investigation, Cado found that this malicious domain was registered through “Apiname” and resolved to IP address 94[.]154[.]35[.]15. Open Source Intelligence analysis revealed that not only was the domain being mimicked, but also several other tech companies' domains have been targeted in a similar fashion. This suggests that it was created as part of a broader campaign to target a large number of brands. Where possible, the affected companies were notified prior to this blog being released.
The threat actor also created an X (formerlyTwitter) account as Cado with the typo’d domain mimicking our own X account and in one instance, they had taken it as far as purchasing a Gold Checkmark, adding followers, and following people related to Cado, in order to create a sense of authenticity.
Figure 1: Fake Cado Security account created by threat actor using typo'd username
Figure 2: Fake Cado Security account profile created by threat actor using typo'd username
As seen with the other tech related companies that were also victims of the same domain registration typo activity, Cado found the threat actor had also created X accounts for some of those companies as well.
Actions speak louder than words
When Cado identified that the malicious domain was redirecting to its website, the following proactive actions were taken:
Informed all staff about the current situation and reminded them of the actions they should take. Fostering a security-conscious culture where everyone plays their part in defending against cyber threats is key for a business’ cyber security posture. Ensure your cyber security training is always updated to reflect the latest threats, and that staff are briefed on a routine basis. By investing time and resources into employee cybersecurity education, businesses can significantly reduce the risk of a breach, protect sensitive information, and maintain smooth operations.
Searched for any emails originating from the malicious domain, and implemented alerting and a block for future emails. By doing so, threat actors were unable to send malicious content or phishing attempts to staff inboxes. This step not only protects team members, but also limits the potential damage caused by any malicious emails.
Reported the activity to the DNS registrar who subsequently suspended the domain. By taking this action, not only was the issue addressed at hand, but it also contributed to the overall security of the internet by having a potentially malicious domain taken offline.
Additional typosquatting domains identified
Where possible the organizations included below have all been alerted regarding these fraudulent domains.
URLs
biaizetech[.]com
cadosecurlty[.]com
changeliy[.]com
ciickup[.]com
elliptlc[.]com
miikroad[.]com
ogiivy[.]com
q0nt0[.]com
raiiwayapp[.]com
scrlb3[.]com
sh0rtcut[.]com
slgmaprime[.]com
slnglegrain[.]com
spndesk[.]com
twinmotlon[.]com
tlnulti[.]com
0penraven[.]com
IP addresses
94[.]154[.]35[.]15
The key takeaway
This discovery underscores the importance of staying vigilant and proactive in protecting against such potential threats. It also highlights the need to monitor domain registrations, especially those that closely resemble our own, as well as staying abreast of the latest cybersecurity trends and best practices. By being aware of these potential risks and taking adequate measures to secure our domains, teams can collectively work towards mitigating the impact of such activities on organizations and the broader tech industry.
Darktrace cyber analysts are world-class experts in threat intelligence, threat hunting and incident response, and provide 24/7 SOC support to thousands of Darktrace customers around the globe. Inside the SOC is exclusively authored by these experts, providing analysis of cyber incidents and threat trends, based on real-world experience in the field.
React2Shell Reflections: Cloud Insights, Finance Sector Impacts, and How Threat Actors Moved So Quickly
This blog breaks down how attackers rapidly weaponized the React2Shell vulnerability, with a particular focus on cloud‑native financial environments. Drawing on Darktrace’s honeypot research, it explores emerging threat actor tooling, exploitation timelines, and why behavioral‑anomaly‑led security is critical in today’s cloud landscape.
Hola VPN Abuse: From Proxy Traffic to Malware and Cryptomining
Introduction
In enterprise environments, non-compliant software traffic can introduce unexpected exposure by creating unmanaged paths for outbound connectivity. Hola VPN is a notable example because of its peer-to-peer design, which can effectively turn user devices into routing or exit nodes for other parties’ traffic, shifting the risk profile from that of a traditional virtual private network (VPN) to something closer to a distributed proxy.
As a result, the appearance of Hola-related activity, whether from prior installation or unintended background connections, should be treated with caution. Such activity may provide a foothold for malicious behavior, including lateral movement or command-and-control communication.
This blog explores how Hola-associated activity appeared as part of broader patterns of suspicious behavior observed across the Darktrace customer base.
The campaign
In February and March 2026, Darktrace observed similar anomalous activity across multiple customer environments, with affected devices showing consistent behavioral patterns. These included connections to multiple *.hola[.]org endpoints using Hola-related user agents, suggesting interaction with Hola infrastructure rather than isolated or incidental traffic.
Following these connections, affected customer environments showed downloads of suspicious executable files from rare external endpoints 188.241.219[.]55 and 184.241.218[.]111. Both endpoints have been flagged as potentially malicious by open-source intelligence (OSINT) [1][2].
These downloads were conducted using consistent user agents across impacted customers, specifically ‘Hola svc_js_win32/1.249.408’ and ‘Hola svc_js_win32/1.251.389’, suggesting a possible association with Hola-related activity.
Notably, this pattern aligns with recent reporting that, in some cases, Hola distributed an undeclared executable component, me[.]exe, which was later assessed to be a likely Monero-mining binary introduced via a compromised delivery pipeline [3].
Case Study 1
Darktrace first observed a new device on January 19, 2026, within a customer environment based in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region. On the same day it appeared on the network, the device communicated with multiple pieces of Hola VPN-linked infrastructure before downloading a binary from a hola[.]org subdomain.
Figure 1: Cyber AI Analyst investigation highlighting Hola VPN service activity potentially associated with subsequent HTTP command-and-control (C2) connections.
Subsequent Darktrace telemetry revealed a recurring pattern of activity from the day the device was first observed through to March 4, 2026. During this period, the device repeatedly issued HTTP GET requests to the URI /bwfile?size=1048576, each returning a 200 OK response, indicating successful file retrieval.
This behavior was accompanied by a POST request to /bwfile, followed by an additional GET request for a significantly larger file at /bwfile?size=26214400, suggesting a deliberate and structured file transfer pattern.
Notably, the binary download activity was not tied to a single static host. Instead, it was observed across multiple URLs that changed over time while remaining within the same hola[.]org domain. This pattern suggests the use of rotating or distributed delivery infrastructure rather than a fixed endpoint.
Figure 2: Variation in URLs over time within the same hola[.]org domain, indicating the use of dynamically changing endpoints.
Across these events, the activity was consistently associated with the user agent Hola svc_js_win32/1.249.408, further linking the traffic to Hola-related service components. Amid these persistent and unusual connections, on February 22, Darktrace observed the device connecting to 188.241.219[.]55/proxy-peer-windows-amd64[.]exe, resulting in the download of an executable file.
Figure 3: File transfer event showing the download of an executable from the rare external endpoint 188.241.219[.]55.
Based on its file hash, the downloaded file was assessed as a likely Trojan downloader [4], with import hash (imphash) values showing similarities to samples linked to Vidar, Rhadamanthys, and Stealc according to OSINT [5]. Overall, this sequence of activity suggests that Hola-related connectivity may have been leveraged as part of a broader malware delivery chain.
Darktrace’s Autonomous Response
Due to the highly unusual activity observed, Darktrace Autonomous Response was triggered by the device’s behavior. However, as the customer deployment was configured in “Human Confirmation” mode, manual approval was required before any action could be taken.
Had the deployment been set to “Fully Autonomous” mode, Darktrace would have automatically:
Blocked connections to the associated ports and external endpoints
Prevented all outgoing network connections from the device
Enforced the device’s established ‘pattern of life’, allowing normal activity to continue while restricting any anomalous behavior
Figure 4: Example of a Darktrace Autonomous Response model highlighting the action that would have been taken, demonstrating how the system identifies anomalous behavior and applies targeted containment measures to restrict suspicious network activity.
Case Study 2
While the first case focused on anomalous activity from a newly observed device, Darktrace also identified cases in which devices had already been communicating with Hola-related endpoints prior to the suspected campaign. This may suggest pre-existing Hola usage within the environment, potentially increasing exposure and creating an avenue for subsequent suspicious activity.
One case involved three devices within a customer network based in the Americas (AMS). In this instance, a different payload was identified: me[.]exe, a potentially malicious cryptocurrency miner also referred to as HolaMonitorService[.]exe [6][7]. The downloads were observed from infrastructure similar to that seen in Case 1, including an IP address within the same 188.241.0.0/16 subnet.
Connections to *.hola[.]org, alongside the use of potential Hola-related user agents consistent with those in Case 1, were also identified, further suggesting a link between the observed activity and Hola-associated infrastructure.
Darktrace observed activity indicative of unusual VPN usage on the first affected device on February 2, followed by telemetry suggesting potential Tor usage. This was later followed by the download of me[.]exe on March 10 from 188.241.218[.]111. Notably, this device was the earliest among the three within the deployment to exhibit the presence of the suspicious executable.
Figure 5: Cyber AI Analyst detection highlighting the download of a suspicious executable from a similar external endpoint in a separate deployment.
On March 5, 2026, the second affected device exhibited a slightly different progression, initiating connections to http-test1[.]hola[.]org using the user agent ‘hola_get’. This activity was followed by the download of me[.]exe from the same endpoint on March 13, consistent with the broader pattern of Hola-related downloads observed across the environment.
Figure 6: Example of Hola VPN-related connectivity observed on the network prior to the suspected campaign, indicating pre-existing usage that may have contributed to subsequent activity.
The final affected device within this customer’s network demonstrated a more limited but related pattern, also downloading me[.]exe on March 17 using the same ‘hola_get’ user agent.
While the earlier Hola VPN usage observed across the deployment may not have been directly related to the suspected malware campaign, it may nonetheless have contributed to reduced visibility. The presence of pre-existing Hola-related traffic could have obscured malicious activity, making it more difficult to distinguish legitimate usage from attacker-driven behavior and, in turn, hindering the timely identification of the emerging compromise.
Darktrace’s Autonomous Response
For this deployment, the customer had their Autonomous Response capability configured in “Fully Autonomous” mode, allowing Darktrace to take action without human intervention. As a result, the system was able to autonomously disrupt the activity as soon as relevant events were identified through model detections.
Figure 7: Darktrace Autonomous Response actions taken against suspicious activity linked to Hola VPN.
Suspected cryptomining activity
As previously noted, some of the observed executable payloads appear to be linked to cryptomining malware. Across a subset of affected customer environments, this assessment was further supported by subsequent device activity consistent with Monero mining. Affected devices established follow-on connections to multiple external endpoints aligned with known mining infrastructure, indicating post-download execution.
Considering the broader sequence of activity, this pattern may point to a wider form of abuse in which legitimate VPN-related traffic is used to mask or facilitate malicious behavior following compromise.
On several devices, the download of executable files, including a newly observed peer[.]exe, was followed by alerts indicative of cryptocurrency mining activity. Mining-related credentials such as ‘x’ were observed using the Minergate protocol to communicate with endpoints within the 89.125.255.0/24 subnet and 188.241.218[.]111, the same endpoint involved in earlier download activity. Additional credentials appeared to reflect device-specific CPU identifiers, for example ‘12th Gen Intel(R) Core (TM) i5-1235U’.
Observed mining methods included login, submit, and job, consistent with active participation in a pool-based mining workflow rather than passive or incidental contact. The login method indicates that the host authenticated to the mining service as a worker, job reflects the assignment of computational tasks, and submit shows completed work being returned to the pool [8]. This sequence suggests that affected devices were actively contributing processing resources as part of an unauthorized distributed mining operation.
The presence of unauthorized cryptominers can lead to degraded system performance and reduced device stability. Beyond the immediate resource impact, such activity often serves as an indicator of a broader compromise rather than an isolated issue. This may increase the risk of further malware deployment, persistence mechanisms, and lateral movement, particularly in environments where the initial intrusion has not been fully contained.
Conclusion
Across affected environments, detections such as unusual VPN usage, connections to Hola infrastructure, anomalous HTTP activity, suspicious file downloads, and subsequent cryptomining behavior were linked into a single, evolving incident narrative. This aggregation provided a clearer view of attack progression, enabling security teams to understand not just isolated alerts, but the full sequence of compromise from initial contact through to post-exploitation.
Ultimately, these activities show that the risk posed by non-compliant software such as Hola VPN can extend far beyond simple policy violations. What began as traffic to Hola-related infrastructure was, in multiple cases, followed by behavior suggesting deliberate misuse, including suspicious executable downloads using Hola-related user agents and, in some instances, evidence of active cryptomining. These were not isolated anomalies, but elements of a broader pattern in which seemingly benign proxy or VPN-related communications may have created a pathway for malicious delivery and unauthorized resource exploitation.
The significance of this activity lies not only in the downloads or mining, but in what it reveals about an attacker’s ability to blend malicious operations into traffic associated with software that may already have a foothold in the environment. When unapproved software operates within an enterprise, it can reduce visibility, blur the distinction between legitimate and malicious traffic, and create opportunities to extend compromise in ways that are persistent and difficult to detect. Darktrace’s anomaly-based approach enables these behavioral distinctions to be identified, regardless of whether the device is new or long established within the network.
Credit to Min Kim (Associate Principal Analyst), Priya Thapa (Senior Cyber Analyst) Edited by Ryan Traill (Content Manager)
![Variation in URLs over time within the same hola[.]org domain, indicating the use of dynamically changing endpoints.](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/626ff4d25aca2edf4325ff97/6a304bdeff111215c0436931_Screenshot%202026-06-15%20at%2012.00.43%E2%80%AFPM.png)
![File transfer event showing the download of an executable from the rare external endpoint 188.241.219[.]55.](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/626ff4d25aca2edf4325ff97/6a304c2468d20aeff16a2721_Screenshot%202026-06-15%20at%2012.01.53%E2%80%AFPM.png)
