Staying Ahead of Brand Impersonation: What the Latest HP Phishing Campaign Reveals About Evolving Threats
Cybercriminals are once again leveraging trusted brand names to fool unsuspecting users. A recent HP phishing campaign impersonating HP printer customer support demonstrates how attackers are refining their tactics to exploit everyday IT scenarios. The suspicious emails claim that recipients' HP printers have been "deactivated" and prompt them to schedule a call through a provided link. While the premise seems plausible on the surface, closer inspection reveals telltale signs of a social engineering attack designed to harvest credentials or gain remote access to corporate systems.
Why This Matters for Security Teams
Brand impersonation attacks like this HP campaign represent a significant and growing challenge for IT and security professionals. Attackers deliberately choose widely recognized brands and realistic scenarios (such as printer support issues or service disruptions) because these situations are familiar and non-threatening to employees. The result is a higher success rate for phishing attempts that bypass traditional technical controls.
The sophistication of these attacks continues to increase. Modern phishing emails often include branded visuals, business software terminology, and professionally formatted content that makes them difficult to distinguish from legitimate vendor communications at first glance. For security teams already stretched thin, this evolution means that technology alone cannot provide adequate protection. The human element becomes both the vulnerability and the potential defense.
Red Flags in the HP Impersonation Campaign
KnowBe4 researchers identified several indicators that expose this HP email as fraudulent:
- Non-corporate sender addresses that don't match HP's official domain structure
- Awkward sentence construction and minor grammatical inconsistencies
- Artificial urgency designed to bypass critical thinking
- Generic greetings that lack personalization typical of genuine vendor support
- Suspicious call-to-action links that redirect to non-HP domains
While these clues may seem obvious to security professionals, the average employee juggling multiple tasks and dozens of daily emails might easily overlook them, especially when the scenario appears routine.
Building Your Human Firewall
This is precisely where comprehensive security awareness training becomes essential. Organizations need to move beyond annual compliance checkboxes and implement ongoing education that evolves alongside attacker tactics. KnowBe4 emphasizes that creating a "human firewall" requires consistent reinforcement of security best practices combined with real-world testing through simulated phishing campaigns.
Security awareness training delivers measurable business value by directly addressing the behaviors that lead to successful breaches. When employees can confidently identify and report suspicious emails, organizations reduce their exposure to:
- Credential theft and account takeover
- Financial fraud through business email compromise
- Broader network compromise via malware delivery
- Data exfiltration and regulatory penalties
Simulated phishing exercises take this a step further by providing actionable intelligence. These controlled campaigns help security teams identify which employees and departments are most vulnerable, what types of social engineering techniques are most effective against their workforce, and how user behavior changes over time with continued education.
The Ongoing Arms Race
The HP impersonation campaign is part of a broader industry trend. Attackers are rapidly iterating on their methods, continuously testing new approaches to bypass both technical security controls and human skepticism. Context-aware phishing that exploits trusted brands and familiar business workflows will only become more prevalent and convincing.
For security professionals, this means that yesterday's training quickly becomes outdated. The threats your team learned to recognize six months ago may look completely different today. A continuous, adaptive approach to security awareness is no longer optional but rather a fundamental component of a mature security program.
Organizations that invest in regular training and simulated phishing campaigns through platforms like KnowBe4 are better positioned to adapt as threats evolve, building organizational resilience from the ground up rather than relying solely on technical defenses that attackers are constantly working to circumvent.
How prepared is your team to identify the next wave of brand impersonation attacks? When was the last time you tested your human defenses with realistic phishing simulations?
