Global Crackdown Arrests 276, Shuts 9 Crypto Scam Centers, Seizes $701M

A coordinated international operation involving U.S. and Chinese authorities has arrested at least 276 suspects and shut down nine scam centers used for cryptocurrency investment fraud schemes targeting Americans, resulting in millions of dollars in losses. The crackdown was led by the Dubai...

New OPCOPRO Scam Uses AI and Fake WhatsApp Groups to Defraud Victim

Meet OPCOPRO, an online scam that builds a fake AI-run world like The Truman Show using WhatsApp and apps to steal IDs via fake KYC and investments...

INTERPOL Arrests 1,209 Cybercriminals Across 18 African Nations in Global Crackdown

INTERPOL on Friday announced that authorities from 18 countries across Africa have arrested 1,209 cybercriminals who targeted 88,000 victims. "The crackdown recovered $97.4 million and dismantled 11,432 malicious infrastructures, underscoring the global reach of cybercrime and the urgent need for...

BaitTrap: Over 17,000 Fake News Websites Caught Fueling Investment Fraud Globally

A newly released report by cybersecurity firm CTM360 reveals a large-scale scam operation utilizing fake news websites—known as Baiting News Sites BNS—to deceive users into online investment fraud across 50 countries. These BNS pages are made to look like real news outlets: CNN, BBC, CNBC, or...

Google Is Using On-Device AI to Spot Scam Texts and Investment Fraud

Android’s “Scam Detection” protection in Google Messages will now be able to flag even more types of digital fraud...

INTERPOL Arrests 306 Suspects, Seizes 1,842 Devices in Cross-Border Cybercrime Bust

Law enforcement authorities in seven African countries have arrested 306 suspects and confiscated 1,842 devices as part of an international operation codenamed Red Card that took place between November 2024 and February 2025. The coordinated effort "aims to disrupt and dismantle cross-border...

Meta takes down more than 2 million accounts in fight against pig butchering

Meta provided insight this week into the company's efforts in taking down more than 2 million accounts that were connected to pig butchering scams on their owned platforms, Facebook and Instagram. Pig butchering scams are big business, with hundreds of millions of dollars involved every year. The...

Experts Uncover 70,000 Hijacked Domains in Widespread 'Sitting Ducks' Attack Scheme

Multiple threat actors have been found taking advantage of an attack technique called Sitting Ducks to hijack legitimate domains for using them in phishing attacks and investment fraud schemes for years. The findings come from Infoblox, which said it identified nearly 800,000 vulnerable registere...

Google Sues App Developers Over Fake Crypto Investment App Scam

Google has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. against two app developers for allegedly engaging in an "international online consumer investment fraud scheme" that tricked users into downloading bogus Android apps from the Google Play Store and other sources and stealing their funds under the guise of...

Pig butchering scams, how they work and how to avoid them

Pig butchering scams are big business. There are hundreds of millions of dollars involved every year. The numbers are not very precise because some see them as a special kind of romance scam, while others classify them as investment fraud. The victims in Pig Butchering schemes are referred to as...

A week in security (January 1 – January 7)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Police investigate sexual assault on an avatar How AI hallucinations are making bug hunting harder Explained: SMTP smuggling Facebook introduces another way to track you – Link History 23andMe blames "negligent" breach victims, says it’s their own fault Microsoft...

Investment fraud a serious money maker for criminals

Europols’s spotlight report ‘Online fraud schemes: a web of deceit’, looks into online fraud schemes—a major crime threat in the EU and beyond—and one of the reports primary themes is investment fraud. But first I want to share some more remarkable conclusions from the report: Charity scams that...

3,500 Arrested in Global Operation HAECHI-IV Targeting Financial Criminals

A six-month-long international police operation codenamed HAECHI-IV has resulted in the arrests of nearly 3,500 individuals and seizures worth $300 million across 34 countries. The exercise, which took place from July through December 2023, took aim at various types of financial crimes such as...

Investment fraud overtakes business email compromise as most reported fraud

The Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI has published its 2022 Internet Crime Report. One of the most notable points is that investment fraud has now overtaken business email compromise BEC as the most reported and most damaging type of fraud. The numbers are based on the complaints reported to t...

Interpol Seized $130 Million from Cybercriminals in Global "HAECHI-III" Crackdown Operation

Interpol on Thursday announced the seizure of $130 million worth of virtual assets in connection with a global crackdown on cyber-enabled financial crimes and money laundering. The international police operation, dubbed HAECHI-III, transpired between June 28 and November 23, 2022, resulting in th...

2022 Cybersecurity Predictions: The Experts Clear Off the Crystal Ball

As we walk through the doorway of 2022, it's hard not to wish at least some among us had the gift of cosmic foresight. Many most? of the questions we thought in 2021 that we'd have answered by this point — chief among them, when will COVID finally leave us alone??? — still seem to elude us. In...