Report by Talos

PDFs: Portable documents, or perfect deliveries for phish?

5 FINDINGSPublished Jul 2, 2025
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Key Findings

Most phone numbers found in email threats leveraging the TOAD social engineering technique are Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) numbers.

TalosPDFs: Portable documents, or perfect deliveries for phish? ·Jul 2, 2025
PhishingTOAD

NortonLifeLock, PayPal, and Geek Squad were among the most impersonated brands in TOAD emails with PDF attachments

TalosPDFs: Portable documents, or perfect deliveries for phish? ·Jul 2, 2025
PhishingTOADPDFImpersonation

Microsoft and Docusign were among the most frequently impersonated brands in phishing emails with PDF attachments.

TalosPDFs: Portable documents, or perfect deliveries for phish? ·Jul 2, 2025
PhishingTOADPDFImpersonation

A significant portion of email threats with PDF payloads persuade victims to call adversary-controlled phone numbers, employing Telephone-Oriented Attack Delivery (TOAD) or callback phishing.

TalosPDFs: Portable documents, or perfect deliveries for phish? ·Jul 2, 2025
PhishingTOAD

Phone numbers are sometimes reused on consecutive days in TOAD attacks.

TalosPDFs: Portable documents, or perfect deliveries for phish? ·Jul 2, 2025
PhishingTOAD