A week in security (November 6 – November 12)

After coming out victorious in a case against PUPs, Malwarebytes CEO Marcin Kleczynski has this to say: We fought for our users and we won. -- Marcin Kleczynski @mkleczynski November 9, 2017 And my, do we feel like champions! You can read more about this here. Last week, we looked into the...

Of scammers and cute puppies

We’ve followed tech support scammers for quite a while at Malwarebytes. They’ve been of particular interest because of their preference for scamming the poor, the elderly, and the developmentally disabled. But there’s a diverse spectrum of online scams a criminal can profit from, and today we’re...

Whois Maintainer Accidentally Makes Password Hashes Available For Download

The regional internet registrar that administers IP addresses for the Asia Pacific region accidentally leaked Whois database data, including hashed passwords, forcing it to reset all passwords for objects in its Whois database. According to Asia Pacific Network Information Center APNIC, the...

Labs report: summer ushers in unprecedented season of breaches

In this edition of the Malwarebytes Cybercrime Tactics and Techniques report for the third quarter of 2017, we saw a number of high profile breaches targeting the personal information of hundreds of millions of people. While the Equifax breach may have dominated the news cycle, notable attacks...

Cybersecurity in the Workplace is Everybody’s Business

What can individual users do to preserve cybersecurity at work? Your organization is spending on cybersecurity tools, you have an awareness program, and if you look you will find that there are standards and procedures for choosing and maintaining products to help keep information secure. But wha...

A week in security (October 02 – October 08)

Last week, we gave you some tips for National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, walked through an exploration of a small adware file, and explored the complicated world of the Homograph attack. Here's what else happened in security. VB2017 Many of our team members attended VB2017 in Madrid, one of t...

Netflix scam warning

Always be on your toes While we are used to receiving scam attempts pretending to be from banks, online shops, credit card companies, and international courier services that does not mean all the other emails are safe. Far from it. To demonstrate this point we will show you a scam aimed at Netfli...

Don’t let these gaming threats give you a Game Over

With EGX, the biggest gaming event in the UK opening its doors today, we thought it'd be timely to remind you of some of the threats currently facing gamers. No matter what type of game, client, or system you use, there's always something waiting to try and give you a bad day where the safety of...

IC3 Issues Alert on Disaster-Related Fraud

The Internet Crime Complaint Center IC3 has released an announcement on fraudulent cyber activity related to natural disasters. IC3 reports that scammers have recently used email and social-networking sites to solicit money from disaster victims with scams on false temporary housing and job...

Crowdsourced fraud and kickstarted scams

Crowdsourced funding opportunities via Kickstarter, Patreon, and GoFundMe have removed many structural roadblocks for people to access capital quickly and conveniently. But they’ve also lowered the barrier to entry for many very old scams. So how do you tell the difference between a great cause o...

A week in security (September 4 – September 10)

Last week, we looked into expired domain names being used for malvertising, delved into dubious Facebook apps, and checked out Chinese seminar scams. We also explained the whys and wherefores of false positives, explained what Google is doing with HTTPs, warned you away from a fake DHS email, and...

Hurricane-Related Scams

As the peak of the 2017 hurricane season approaches, US-CERT warns users to be watchful for various malicious cyber activity targeting both disaster victims and potential donors. Users should exercise caution when handling emails that relate to recent hurricanes, even if those emails appear to...

An Established Solution for Mobile Threats

As much as smartphones and applications have evolved over the years, so has mobile malware. We’re seeing an increasing number of threats—from mobile ransomware and auto-clicking adware to dangerous backdoors that can compromise your privacy. And there are also legitimate personal applications tha...

A week in security (August 28 – September 3)

Last week, we looked at what actions Kronos can perform in the final installment of a 2-part post. We also dived into Locky, again, a ransomware that just made a comeback, and found that its latest variant as of this writing has anti-sandboxing capabilities. This means that once Locky has...

How hackers have improved their BEC attack methods

Email is increasingly an integral part of global life, but business email compromise BEC attacks could place these communications at risk. Research by The Radicati Group found that 2.9 billion people worldwide will be using email portals by 2019. Each business user will send 126 messages daily by...

Potential Hurricane Harvey Phishing Scams

US-CERT warns users to remain vigilant for malicious cyber activity seeking to capitalize on interest in Hurricane Harvey. Users are advised to exercise caution in handling any email with subject line, attachments, or hyperlinks related to Hurricane Harvey, even if it appears to originate from a...

Business Email Compromise Campaign Harvesting Credentials in Numerous Industries

A business email compromise campaign emanating out of Western Africa is targeting companies in a wide swathe of industries, bucking a trend of these scams focusing on wire fraud and targeting CEOs. The criminals are using phishing emails with links redirecting victims to sites designed to harvest...

FTC Releases Alert on Government Grant Scams

The Federal Trade Commission FTC has released an alert on government grant scams. In these schemes, scammers pose as government officials to get consumers to send them money. Anytime someone asks you to pay money to get money, stop and think twice. US-CERT encourages consumers to refer to the FTC...

IC3 Releases Alert on Gift Card Scams

The Internet Crime Complaint Center IC3 has released an alert warning consumers of music gift card scams. This type of scam targets victims, gains their confidence, and tricks them into providing gift card information. To stay safer online, review the IC3 alert on Online Scammers Require Payment...

Mobile Menace Monday: Malicious clicker with extra maliciousness included

A new malicious clicker has emerged onto third-party app stores. Chinese in origin, the malicious app uses heavy obfuscation and poses as a battery optimizer app. We classify is as Android/Trojan.Clicker.hyj. Click to view slideshow. Hide what’s inside To obfuscate its code, Clicker.hyj uses an A...