The U.S. has warned that a North Korean cybercrime group has adopted new tactics to bypass email security protocols and boost its social engineering operations against researchers, nonprofits and media organizations.

In a joint advisory issued Thursday, the State Department, FBI and National Security Agency (NSA) stated that Kimsuky has been exploiting improperly configured DNS Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) record policies to spoof legitimate email domains and obscure the origins of spear-phishing emails.

The alert highlighted North Korean cybercriminals’ reliance on social engineering techniques including spear-phishing to compromise targets’ computers and