Phishing Attack Leads to Lateral Movement in Just 48 Minutes

Researchers at ReliaQuest detailed a phishing incident in which attackers flooded over 15 users with spam, then masqueraded as IT support via an external onmicrosoft.com Teams account to persuade victims to use Windows Quick Assist and grant remote control; the intruders achieved lateral movement across the network in roughly 48 minutes. The attack used social engineering and native Windows tooling (no malware or malicious attachments), highlighting a low-tech but effective tactic likely to be adopted by other threat groups, including ransomware actors.