Microsoft flags Unicode-smuggling phishing campaign

Microsoft is alerting customers to a high-volume phishing campaign that used invisible Unicode tag characters to split financial-lure words and evade literal email-filter matching. The company said the activity began in early February 2026 and, during a roughly three-month high-volume phase, reached an estimated 1 million to 2.37 million messages on weekdays. The messages used finance-themed sender domains and were relayed through ActiveCampaign click-tracking infrastructure, according to the report.