Russian State-Supported Cyber Actors Conduct Phishing Campaign Targeting Users of Zimbra Collaboration Suite

div class= c-page-title__buttons a class= c-button href= https://media.defense.gov/2026/Jul/22/2003965244/-1/-1/1/CSA_RUSSIA_PHISHING_TARGET_ZIMBRA.PDF Russian State-Supported Cyber Actors Conduct Phishing Campaign Targeting Users of Zimbra Collaboration Suite /a /div h2 strong Executive summary /strong nbsp; /h2 p A group of Russian state-supported cyber actors has been targeting and compromising various Western government and commercial organizations using the Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) software since at least July 2025. The Russian state-supported advanced persistent threat (APT) group’s activity is tracked in the cybersecurity community under several names (see a href= #cyber1 Cybersecurity industry tracking /a ), primarily as “LAUNDRY BEAR,” a name initially coined by the Netherlands General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) and Defence Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) [ a href= #wc1 1 /a ]. /p p LAUNDRY BEAR’s targeting is almost certainly to gather sensitive information for the Russian Federation, with these actors primarily focusing on the covert acquisition of email data. Previous campaigns indicated LAUNDRY BEAR relied on unsophisticated initial access techniques—including password spraying, phishing, and pass-the-cookie—allowing the group to successfully run high-volume operations. The latest campaign targeting ZCS uses a novel exploit that was a zero-day vulnerability when first exploited and continues to be successfully exploited. The vulnerability, Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) a href= https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-66376 target= _blank CVE-2025-66376 /a , was patched in November 2025. This demonstrates LAUNDRY BEAR’s intent and ability to deploy increasingly sophisticated technical capabilities. /p p Unlike traditional phishing campaigns that persuade a user into taking an action, such as clicking a link or opening a file, LAUNDRY BEAR’s latest campaign leverages a view-based exploit that only requires a user to view a malicious email within a vulnerable version of the webmail service. Once viewed, the exploit attempts to exfiltrate the victim’s last 90 days of email communications, the organization email directory (i.e., Global Address List [GAL]), and other sensitive information to servers controlled by LAUNDRY BEAR. The exploit also attempts to establish persistent access to victim accounts through a variety of means as detailed in the a href= #persistence1 Persistence and credential access /a section. /p p This Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) warns of this ongoing malicious threat activity and urges organizations to update their vulnerable software and implement additional mitigations to thwart these Russian state-supported actors’ continued success. The CSA is being released by the following authoring and co-sealing agencies: /p ul li United States National Security Agency (NSA) /li li United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) /li li Netherlands Defence Intelligence and Secur