FBI Warns of a Hidden Web Tactic Fueling Phishing and Ransomware

The FBI warns that threat actors are increasingly abusing Traffic Distribution Systems (TDS) to selectively redirect users—via compromised websites, malicious ads, SEO poisoning, and phishing—to phishing pages, malware downloads, and financial scams, potentially enabling account compromise and resale to ransomware groups; the PSA details how TDS evades detection, the types of data collected, and recommends mitigation steps (URL verification, patching, strong passwords, 2FA, security plugins, endpoint monitoring) and reporting to IC3.