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Digital Shadows: How Hackers Are Exploiting Forgotten DNS Records to Launch Stealth Campaigns
In an alarming new wave of cyberattacks, a hacker group dubbed Hazy Hawk is exploiting abandoned DNS CNAME records to hijack subdomains belonging to high-trust organizations. This tactic allows the threat actors to seamlessly infiltrate the digital footprints of renowned institutions including government bodies, elite universities, global corporations, and international nonprofits — all without tripping standard security alarms.
The method they use is disturbingly simple yet dangerously effective. It targets forgotten or unused DNS CNAME entries pointing to decommissioned cloud resources. Once these dormant paths are identified, Hazy Hawk swoops in and registers a cloud service under the same name. As a result, any web traffic sent to the original subdomain now resolves to a malicious clone operated by the hackers — one that’s fully hosted and controlled by them.
Among the hijacked victims are household names like the CDC, Unicef, NYU, Honeywell, Michelin, TED, and even the governments of California and Australia. These are not small breaches. They’re strategic compromises that feed into elaborate scam networks involving phishing, tech support fraud, fake antivirus warnings, and redirection to explicit content or bogus streaming sites.
Let’s explore what this means, how the attack unfolds, and what kind of damage it could lead to if not urgently addressed.
🧠 Breakdown of the Attack and Key Findings (30-line summary)
Cybersecurity researchers at Infoblox have flagged a sophisticated domain hijacking campaign spearheaded by a threat actor identified as Hazy Hawk. The group targets organizations with DNS CNAME records pointing to abandoned cloud services. These cloud endpoints, once neglected, become gateways for hackers to re-register the same cloud resource and redirect all traffic from the trusted subdomain to their malicious server.
Using this method, the attackers effectively gain access to URLs that look authentic — because they are built on legitimate subdomains of major organizations. Once a takeover is complete, Hazy Hawk creates hundreds of scam URLs under the hijacked domain, leveraging the high trust ranking of the parent site to rank well in search engines.
This tactic not only boosts visibility of their scam content but also increases the likelihood that unsuspecting users will trust the domain and click through. Victims are then routed through a sophisticated Traffic Distribution System (TDS) that profiles their behavior based on device type, location, and VPN status. The end goal: deliver tailored scams or malware that is more likely to succeed.
Targets include a jaw-dropping list:
cdc.gov (U.S. Centers for Disease Control)
berkeley.edu (UC Berkeley)
honeywell.com, michelin.co.uk, unilever.com (Global manufacturers)
ey.com, pwc.com, deloitte.com (Top consulting firms)
ted.com, unicef.org, nyu.edu
health.gov.au, ca.gov
Once users land on the malicious URLs, they are either phished, tricked into downloading fake apps, lured into tech support scams, or bombarded with persistent push notifications. These notifications often continue even after the site is closed, serving as a steady revenue stream for the attackers.
This campaign echoes similar tactics by a different threat group, Savvy Seahorse, who also manipulated CNAME records for malicious redirects. The trend signals a broader issue: DNS CNAME mismanagement, especially in cloud migrations, is emerging as a critical vulnerability that many organizations continue to overlook.
🔍 What Undercode Say:
The rise of Hazy Hawk reveals a disturbing shift in cybercriminal tactics — away from brute-force attacks and toward more passive, stealthy exploitation of administrative oversights. The abuse of forgotten DNS CNAME records is a brilliant yet horrifying example of this trend.
What makes this so effective is the attack’s invisibility. Traditional security protocols don’t flag these hijacks because no real breach happens in the usual sense. There’s no intrusion, no malware deployment through the server, no stolen credentials — just a hijacked pathway. And yet the damage is real: trusted subdomains become vessels for fraud, leading users into traps with devastating financial and reputational consequences.
From an SEO perspective, this is a goldmine for scammers. By nesting their malicious content under domains with high trust scores, attackers not only bypass ad-blockers and spam filters but also game search engines. Google sees these subdomains as extensions of respected organizations, so they rank well — and unsuspecting users pay the price.
For businesses and institutions, the root issue is clear: cloud sprawl and poor DNS hygiene. As teams move services across platforms or decommission old apps, DNS records are rarely cleaned up. It’s digital litter — and hackers like Hazy Hawk are scavengers who know exactly how to exploit it.
There’s also a growing trend of using Traffic Distribution Systems (TDS) to further automate the exploitation pipeline. These systems act as middlemen, analyzing user metadata in real-time and then deciding the best scam to serve. It’s personalized fraud on an industrial scale.
The implications go far beyond embarrassing headlines. Reputational trust is hard-earned and easily lost. When users see malware coming from a .gov or .edu domain, confidence in those institutions erodes. For critical sectors like healthcare, education, and public services, this could translate into broader societal mistrust.
What’s more, the volume of these attacks is accelerating. As more organizations adopt cloud-first strategies, the landscape becomes even more fertile for these types of exploits. The lack of authentication on DNS CNAME records makes it easy for attackers to impersonate legitimate services — and it’s only a matter of time before more threat groups adopt similar playbooks.
Mitigation requires a cultural shift in IT management:
Routine DNS audits
Automated cleanup scripts for cloud decommissions
Continuous monitoring of passive DNS data
These
✅ Fact Checker Results:
🔎 The report is confirmed by Infoblox, a reputable cybersecurity firm.
📚 The hijacking technique aligns with known DNS-based attack vectors.
🚨 Targeted domains and organizations are verifiable and highly credible.
🔮 Prediction:
Expect to see more frequent CNAME-based hijackings in the coming year, especially as smaller organizations migrate to the cloud without proper DNS hygiene. Threat actors will likely automate the scanning and exploitation of vulnerable records, potentially integrating AI to enhance targeting. Organizations that fail to audit and clean up old records will find themselves unintentionally hosting the next wave of global scams.
References:
Reported By: www.bleepingcomputer.com
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