Bohemia and Cannabia Dark Web Markets Taken Down After Joint Police Operation

The Dutch police have announced the takedown of Bohemia and Cannabia, which has been described as the world's largest and longest-running dark web market for illegal goods, drugs, and cybercrime services. The takedown is the result of a collaborative investigation with Ireland, the United Kingdom...

Google Joins Forces with GASA and DNS RF to Tackle Online Scams at Scale

Google on Wednesday announced a new partnership with the Global Anti-Scam Alliance GASA and DNS Research Federation DNS RF to combat online scams. The initiative, which has been codenamed the Global Signal Exchange GSE, is designed to create real-time insights into scams, fraud, and other forms o...

Google Blocks Unsafe Android App Sideloading in India for Improved Fraud Protection

Google has announced that it's piloting a new security initiative that automatically blocks sideloading of potentially unsafe Android apps in India, after similar tests in Singapore, Thailand, and Brazil. The enhanced fraud protection feature aims to keep users safe when they attempt to install...

INTERPOL Arrests 8 in Major Phishing and Romance Fraud Crackdown in West Africa

INTERPOL has announced the arrest of eight individuals in Côte d'Ivoire and Nigeria as part of a crackdown on phishing scams and romance cyber fraud. Dubbed Operation Contender 2.0, the initiative is designed to tackle cyber-enabled crimes in West Africa, the agency said. One such threat involved...

A week in security (September 23 – September 29)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Millions of Kia vehicles were vulnerable to remote attacks with just a license plate number Privacy watchdog files complaint over Firefox quietly enabling its Privacy Preserving Attribution Telegram will hand over user details to law enforcement Don’t share the vir...

Romance scams costlier than ever: 10 percent of victims lose $10,000 or more

Romance scams continue to plague users, but their costs have risen to staggering heights, according to a Malwarebytes survey carried out last month via our weekly newsletter. More than 66 percent of 850 respondents have been targeted by a romance scam, and those that were ensnared paid a hefty...

Malwarebytes Personal Data Remover: A new way to help scrub personal data online

There’s an awful lot about you online that some awful groups want to exploit. The right combination of personal data points could help an identity thief fool a bank into opening a new, fraudulent line of credit in your name. Your alma mater, salary, and email address could help an online scammer...

CISA Warns of Hurricane-Related Scams

As Hurricane Helene approaches, CISA urges users to remain on alert for potential malicious cyber activity. Fraudulent emails and social media messages—often containing malicious links or attachments—are common after major natural disasters. Exercise caution in handling emails with...

A week in security (September 9 – September 15)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Ford seeks patent for conversation-based advertising Scammers advertise fake AppleCare+ service via GitHub repos Facebook scrapes photos of kids from Australian user profiles to train its AI PartnerLeak scam site promises victims full access to "cheating" partner’s...

From Amazon to Target: Hackers Mimic Top Brands in Global Crypto Scam

Cybercriminals are increasingly targeting retail affiliate programs with sophisticated cryptocurrency scams. Retailers and customers must stay alert against…...

A week in security (September 2 – September 8)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Lowe’s employees phished via Google ads Planned Parenthood partly offline after ransomware attack "Hello pervert" sextortion scam includes new threat of Pegasus—and a picture of your home How to avoid election related scams London’s city transport hit by...

North Korean Threat Actors Deploy COVERTCATCH Malware via LinkedIn Job Scams

Threat actors affiliated with North Korea have been observed leveraging LinkedIn as a way to target developers as part of a fake job recruiting operation. These attacks employ coding tests as a common initial infection vector, Google-owned Mandiant said in a new report about threats faced by the...

How to avoid election related scams

With the US election campaigns at full throttle, scammers have taken a renewed interest in the ways this can be used to defraud people, often using the same tactics legitimate campaigns leverage for support emails, text messages, phone calls, and social media pleas. The lure that we have seen the...

Belarusian-Ukrainian Hacker Extradited to U.S. for Ransomware and Cybercrime Charges

A coalition of law enforcement agencies coordinated by the U.K. National Crime Agency NCA has led to the arrest and extradition of a Belarussian and Ukrainian dual-national believed to be associated with Russian-speaking cybercrime groups. Maksim Silnikau aka Maksym Silnikov, 38, went by the onli...

Scammers are impersonating cryptocurrency exchanges, FBI warns

The Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI issued a public service announcement warning the public about scammers impersonating cryptocurrency exchange employees to steal funds. There are many types of crypto related scams, but in this case, the FBI provided an advisory about scammers that contact t...

Meta takes down 63,000 sextortion-related accounts on Instagram

Meta announced the take-down of 63,000 sextortion-related Instagram accounts in Nigeria alone. The action was directed against a group known as Yahoo Boys, a loosely organized set of cybercriminals that largely operate out of Nigeria and specialize in different types of scams. Meta took down a ho...

The massive computer outage over the weekend was not a cyber attack, and I’m not sure why we have to keep saying that

Youre not going to believe this, but there was a lot of misinformation on social media over the weekend after the massive CrowdStrike/Microsoft outage. As airlines cancelled flights, hospitals had to reschedule patients and some companies just flat-out couldnt work on Friday, people were quick to...

Don’t Fall for CrowdStrike Outage Scams

Swindlers are spinning up bogus websites in an attempt to dupe people with “CrowdStrike support” scams following the security firm's catastrophic software update...

Paris Olympics 2024: Securing The Games

The Rising Cyber Threats In recent years, the threat of cyberattacks has grown exponentially, affecting the sports sector as well. Major international events like the Olympics are prime targets for cybercriminals, hacktivists, and even nation-states. The reasons are clear: these events attract...

Singapore Banks to Phase Out OTPs for Online Logins Within 3 Months

Retail banking institutions in Singapore have three months to phase out the use of one-time passwords OTPs for authentication purposes when signing into online accounts to mitigate the risk of phishing attacks. The decision was announced by the Monetary Authority of Singapore MAS and the...