Cryptocurrency Firm Loses $145 Million After CEO Dies With Only Password

QuadrigaCX, the largest bitcoin exchange in Canada, has claimed to have lost CAD 190 million nearly USD 145 million worth of cryptocurrency after the exchange lost access to its cold offline storage wallets. Reason? Unfortunately, the only person with access to the company's offline wallet, found...

Bomb Threat, Sextortion Spammers Abused Weakness at GoDaddy.com

Two of the most disruptive and widely-received spam email campaigns over the past few months -- including an ongoing sextortion email scam and a bomb threat hoax that shut down dozens of schools, businesses and government buildings late last year -- were made possible thanks to an authentication...

Social Security Number scammers are at it again

The Federal Trade Commission FTC once again sounded the alarm in mid-December about the latest Social Security Number SSN scam that continues to affect thousands of Americans. While most of us were only able to read about this type of scam in the past, the FTC now has an audio recording of an SSN...

WhatsApp Gold Scam is Back with Malware Payload

By Waqas In social media, the emergence of fake news and fake apps isn’t uncommon as thousands of these hoaxes keep circulating around the web to spread confusion among the users. Now, there is a new hoax doing the rounds and making headlines and it is called WhatsApp Gold Scam. Dubbed as WhatsAp...

Tech Support Scams: What are They and How do I Stay Safe?

If you read this blog regularly you’re no doubt aware that cyber-criminals are a determined bunch, with a large range of tools and tactics at their disposal to rob you of your identity and hard-earned cash. Tech support scams TSS are an increasingly popular way for them to do just this. In 2017,...

FTC Warns of Netflix Phishing Scam Making Rounds

The Federal Trade Commission FTC is warning of a new phishing scam reeling in Netflix customers and stealing their payment information. According to a post published by the FTC, Wednesday, the spotted scam purports to be an email from Netflix. The email claims that the victim’s account was put on...

This online quiz is now confirmed to be a phishing scam

Ah, online quizzes. Many of us know that they can be somewhat dodgy and nonsense, really—but that doesn’t stop us from clicking the “Start quiz” button anyway. Besides, you have time to kill, and there are only three questions to answer, right? The right kind of wrong Phishing attacks don’t alway...

Christmas tech scams roundup

There’s a fair few Christmas tech scams floating around out there as 2018 winds up, and we thought it’d be a good time to warn you about them. It’s the usual mish-mash of phone antics, social media shenanigans, and click bait. Shall we begin? This scam looks divine BOOM reports on a collection of...

New email extortion scam warns “Pay $4,000 or a hitman is coming for you”

By Carolina In a new extortion scam, a cybercriminal is sending threatening emails to unsuspecting users asking them to pay a whopping $4,000 in Bitcoin or wait to be executed by a hitman. The email extortion scam surfaced on the Internet a few days ago and is currently arriving in victim's inbox...

A Devious Phishing Scam Targets Apple App Store Customers

Be on the lookout for emails that claim to be from the App Store...

Save the Children Federation Duped in $1M Scam

Hackers scammed the Save the Children Federation out of almost $1 million in a business email compromise BEC scam. Save the Children is a well-known U.S.-based non-profit group that offers charity services like fundraising and sponsorships. According to the company’s 2017 income tax returns,...

Nationwide Bomb Threats Look Like New Spin on an Old Bitcoin Scam

Apparent bitcoin scammers caused chaos across the US Thursday, radically escalating longstanding tactics...

Spammed Bomb Threat Hoax Demands Bitcoin

A new email extortion scam is making the rounds, threatening that someone has planted bombs within the recipient's building that will be detonated unless a hefty bitcoin ransom is paid by the end of the business day. Sources at multiple U.S. based financial institutions reported receiving the...

IT consultancy firm caught running ransomware decryption scam

By Waqas Ransomware has become a persistent threat to users globally but for cybercriminals, it is a lucrative business. Recently, IT security researchers at Check Point unearthed a sophisticated ransomware decryption scam in which a Russian IT consultant company has been caught scamming ransomwa...

How Internet Savvy are Your Leaders?

Back in April 2015, I tweeted about receiving a letter via snail mail suggesting the search engine rankings for a domain registered in my name would suffer if I didn't pay a bill for some kind of dubious-looking service I'd never heard of. But it wasn't until the past week that it become clear ho...

A week in security (December 3 – 9)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we gave readers an FYI on multiple breaches that affected Humble Bundle, Quora, and Dunkin' Donuts, to name a few. This follows the announcement from Marriott about a four-year-long breach that impacted half a billion of its patrons. We also pushed out the report,...

Volkswagen Giveaway Scam Peddles Ad Networks

A fake Volkswagen campaign is making its way across social media platforms, luring in victims with promises of a free Volkswagen car giveaway – but instead redirecting them to third-party ad servers. Victims are first sent messages via WhatsApp or Facebook, purporting to be from Volkswagen and...

New Scam Apps Take Advantage of iPhone Touch ID

Touch ID is seamless, which makes it great for unlocking your phone—and for App Store scammers...

U.S. Military Members Catfished and Hooked for Thousands of Dollars

A sextortion ring that aimed “catfish” efforts at U.S. military service members has been uncovered. The scam bilked 442 service members from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps out of more than $560,000. An 11-month investigation, dubbed “Operation Surprise Party” and carried out by the...

iOS Fitness Apps Robbing Money From Apple Victims

Two apps that were posing as fitness-tracking tools were actually using Apple’s Touch ID feature to loot money from unassuming iOS victims. The two impacted apps were the “Fitness Balance App” and “Calories Tracker App.” Both apps looked normal, and served functions like calculating BMI, tracking...