ToddyCat-Linked Umbrij Malware Abuses OAuth to Access Gmail via Google API
Jul 02, 2026
API Security / Cyberespionage
The threat actor known as ToddyCat has been attributed to a new malware called Umbrij that's designed to gain surreptitious access to a victim's email correspondence via the Google API. "In this campaign, the attackers focused their attention on corporate email communications hosted on Gmail, targeting access compromise via APIs," Kaspersky said in a detailed report published this week. "Because the Google API relies on the OAuth 2.0 protocol for authorization, applications can use an OAuth token to access requested email resources." The adversary is said to have developed Umbrij to acquire this token and use it to connect to the browser's management console in headless mode via a remote debugging port. Subsequently, a series of requests was issued to obtain an OAuth authorization code, which was then exchanged for an access token to reach the target resources via the API. The technique has been codenamed Shadow Token via Remote Debug (STRD) b...
