Guardio Labs researchers Nati Tal and Oleg Zaytsev revealed that the malicious emails contained embedded buttons concealing malicious links.

In some cases, the sites downloaded malware aimed at swindling users out of their money.

The attackers also designed entire emails as images to evade text-based spam filters.

Criminals hijacked more than 8,000 trusted domains, sent millions of malicious emails

The fact that they originated from trusted domains also helped bypass detection.