Phishing Attack Causes Power Outage

TAPAirPortugalPortugal Cyber AlertSpain CybersecurityApril2025CyberAttackPortugal and Spain Phishing Attack

A phishing campaign abusing the brand of Portugal's national airline TAP Air Portugal took advantage of the widespread power outage that occurred in Spain and Portugal on 28 April 2025. In a concerted effort to obtain personal and financial information, the perpetrators employed deceptive tactics by disguising fake refund requests as notifications of flight cancellations, ostensibly due to the outage. This incident highlights the power of social engineering attacks in times of crisis.

Notes

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">CONCLUSION<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">The TAP Air Portugal-themed phishing campaign illustrates how attackers rapidly exploit public crises—such as the April 2025 blackout in Spain and Portugal—to launch convincing, large-scale social engineering attacks. By impersonating a trusted airline and distributing fake flight refund emails, threat actors successfully harvested sensitive personal and financial data from victims across key sectors like travel, finance, and telecommunications.<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">As phishing tactics grow more adaptive and event-driven, organizations must adopt layered defenses that combine technical controls, user education, and real-time threat visibility. One critical step is proactively monitoring and neutralizing spoofed domains before they reach end users.<a href="https://socradar.io/solutions/phishing-domain-detection/"> </a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://socradar.io/solutions/phishing-domain-detection/">SOCRadar’s Phishing Domain Detection Solution</a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"> enables security teams to identify and take down malicious domains targeting your brand—helping prevent attacks before they succeed. Investing in such proactive capabilities is essential to staying ahead of today’s phishing threats.<div><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"> </div>

Mitigation

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">MITIGATION<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">SOC Incident Summary Report<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Incident Type: Phishing Campaign<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"> Date Identified: April 28, 2025<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"> Severity: Moderate to High<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"> Status: Active/Monitored<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"> Region Impacted: Spain and Portugal<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"> Threat Actor: Unknown<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"> TLP: WHITE <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">📄 Executive Summary<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">A phishing campaign impersonating Portugal’s national airline, TAP Air Portugal, emerged shortly after widespread power outages affected Spain and Portugal on April 28, 2025. The attackers exploited the public disruption to deliver fake flight refund emails, tricking users into submitting personal and financial data through spoofed TAP Air refund portals. The campaign leverages social engineering techniques tied to current events, significantly increasing its success rate. <div style="margin-left:0pt;" align="left"><table style="border:none;border-collapse:collapse;"><colgroup><col><col></colgroup><tbody><tr style="height:25.75pt;"><td style="vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Category</td><td style="vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Details</td></tr><tr style="height:25.75pt;"><td style="vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Attack Vector</td><td style="vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Email (mass phishing)</td></tr><tr style="height:25.75pt;"><td style="vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Phishing Technique</td><td style="vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Brand impersonation (TAP Air Portugal)</td></tr><tr style="height:25.75pt;"><td style="vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Social Engineering</td><td style="vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Crisis exploitation (blackout-related flight refunds)</td></tr><tr style="height:25.75pt;"><td style="vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Delivery Method</td><td style="vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">HTML-formatted emails with embedded links to phishing pages</td></tr><tr style="height:25.75pt;"><td style="vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Target Sectors</td><td style="vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Airline & Travel, Finance, Consumer, Telecom</td></tr><tr style="height:25.75pt;"><td style="vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Targeted Data</td><td style="vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Full names, emails, payment card details, login credentials</td></tr><tr style="height:25.75pt;"><td style="vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Phishing Infrastructure</td><td style="vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Spoofed domains mimicking TAP Air Portugal refund portal</td></tr><tr style="height:40pt;"><td style="vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Indicators of Compromise</td><td style="vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">[To be filled with specific domains/IPs if detected in monitoring systems]</td></tr></tbody></table></div>