ToddyCat’s New Hacking Tools Steal Outlook Emails and Microsoft 365 Access Tokens
Source The Hacker News
Mentioned vulnerabilities
Rated by Threat Radar
Data as of 2 Dec 2025, 07:27 UTC
What to do
AI-suggested
European organizations should implement a multi-layered defense strategy tailored to the specific tactics used by ToddyCat. First, enforce strict least privilege access policies on domain controllers and critical servers to limit the ability of malware to execute with elevated rights. Monitor and restrict the use of scheduled tasks and PowerShell scripts, employing application control and script-blocking policies to detect and prevent unauthorized execution. Deploy advanced endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions capable of identifying suspicious memory dumping activities, such as the use of ProcDump, and anomalous file access patterns indicative of sector-by-sector copying. Enable logging and alerting on SMB file shares and monitor for unusual access to browser data and Outlook OST files. Implement strong multi-factor authentication (MFA) for Microsoft 365 accounts to reduce the risk posed by stolen OAuth tokens. Regularly audit OAuth token usage and revoke suspicious or stale tokens promptly. Employ network segmentation to isolate domain controllers and sensitive systems, reducing lateral movement opportunities. Conduct regular threat hunting exercises focused on detecting TomBerBil and TCSectorCopy indicators, and maintain up-to-date threat intelligence feeds. Finally, educate users about phishing and social engineering tactics that may facilitate initial compromise, as ToddyCat often relies on gaining initial footholds through credential theft.
Description
The threat actor known as ToddyCat has been observed adopting new methods to obtain access to corporate email data belonging to target companies, including using a custom tool dubbed TCSectorCopy. "This attack allows them to obtain tokens for the OAuth 2.0 authorization protocol using the user's browser, which can be used outside the perimeter of the compromised infrastructure to access