AI Phishing Campaign, TikTok Phishing Targeted, Dutch Police Cyberattack – Cybersecurity News [March 23, 2026]
Here are the top cyber incidents from last week that kept the cybersecurity professionals on their toes. A highly sophisticated AI-powered phishing campaign is targeting hundreds of thousands of businesses worldwide. Meanwhile, TikTok business profiles are on the radar of cybercriminals. In a shocking turn of events, the Dutch Police became the victim of a threat attack. Also, authorities were forced to shut down a school in Southampton after a cyberattack.
Sophisticated AI-powered phishing campaign targets global businesses!
Artificial intelligence has time and again proven to be helpful for threat actors. This time, a high-end, intricate phishing campaign is turning heads because it has been designed using AI. A group of researchers at Huntress has discovered that global business enterprises are on the receiving end of this threat campaign.
The cybercrooks use AI-backed phishing techniques to abuse Microsoft cloud accounts of the victims. A spokesperson from the Huntress team has confirmed that this new campaign is currently limited to a relatively small group of threat actors. Also, so far, they have used only a handful of IP addresses in the threat campaign. However, even with the limited resources at their disposal, they have managed to abuse hundreds of accounts lately.
The campaign gained pace significantly around March 3. The most common attack pattern in this threat campaign involves targeting Microsoft’s authentication flow across devices such as printers and smart TVs. The scammers are mainly targeting sectors like finance, real estate, trade, construction, healthcare, and so on.
Cybersecurity experts recommend deploying conditional access policies, AI threat intelligence, and multi-factor authentication.
TikTok business profiles hit by phishing actors!
TikTok is once again in the headlines and for the wrong reasons! A group of phishing actors is targeting the TikTok business accounts specifically. As revealed in a report, this threat campaign involves sending phishing emails to TikTok business account holders. The researchers have found a malicious link that threat actors use to redirect the victims to fake landing pages. They use a genuine Google Storage URL to add to the credibility. All the malicious landing pages they redirect victims to are registered with Nicenic International Group. The latter is widely abused for large-scale phishing domain registration.
When a victim clicks the malicious link, they are redirected to a fake landing page. This page successfully mimics the TikTok for Business experience. In some cases, they can also resemble legitimate pages, such as Google Careers. Next, the victims are required to fill in a basic form. Once done, the victim gets redirected to a malicious login page.
The threat actors use an Adversary-in-the-Middle phishing kit to capture the login details entered by the victims. The same ATM kit also enables cybercriminals to access to MFA codes. This helps them get complete access to the victim’s TikTok accounts.
The cybersecurity experts stated that TikTok initially appeared to be a “weird choice” in terms of cyber exploitation. But the short-form video creation platform has already been abused multiple times in the past as well.
TikTok can be easily used by threat actors, as the platform allows creators to upload AI-generated videos with fake instructions and malicious links. These links promise free downloads of premium tools. Clicking on any such malicious link can immediately compromise the user account. Experts have also found one such fake video with a whopping 500,000 views and 20,000+ likes.
Another type of TikTok cyber abuse takes the form of fake campaigns promoted by so-called influencers and renowned individuals. These campaigns openly invite people to register accounts on random cryptocurrency exchanges or invest in risky, shady projects.
Dutch National Police hit by cyberattack!
The Dutch National Police or Politie experienced a security breach recently. They have confirmed that it was a phishing attack. However, no sensitive data has been compromised, as stated by the Police department.
They are working closely with security experts, and a thorough investigation is underway. They managed to successfully block the cybercrooks’ access to the compromised devices. The details have been shared in a press release this Wednesday.
The Dutch Police believes that even though the investigation is on, the effect of the phishing attack has been limited. They have also assured that neither any citizen’s personal data nor crucial criminal investigation reports have been abused.
There’s still no clarity on the exact time they detected the cyber breach. Also, there’s uncertainty around the safety of Dutch Police employees’ data.
Besides, this is not the first time that the Dutch Police has been hit by a threat attack. They experienced something similar back in September 2024 as well. Back then, the threat actor managed to compromise contact details of multiple police personnel (phone numbers, private data, email IDs, names, etc.).
Southampton school shut down after cyber breach!
St. Anne’s Catholic School was closed for four days because of a recent cyber breach incident. The school authorities informed the parents on Sunday about the cyber mishap. The threat actors targeted the IT systems of the school and threatened the authorities to wipe away all the data if they failed to pay the ransom.
The IT team proactively responded to prevent the attack from further penetrating deeper into the network. The Southampton school has already shared the details of the attack with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), police, and the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC).
The Headteacher, Julian Waterfield, has stated that no student’s data has been compromised in the data breach incident. The city school is working closely with cyber experts and advisers. The cybersecurity experts had suggested that the school be shut down for four days, keeping in mind the safety of the students and school staff. Also, the entire IT department was at stake.
The school authority is grateful for the cooperation of the parents. They have also received guidance and actionable advice from the NCSC around this cyber mishap.