All the Ways Spotify Tracks You—and How to Stop It

Whether you're listening to workout music or a "cooking dinner" playlist, the app can show you ads based on your mood and what you're doing right now...

Fake Brave browser website dropped malware, thanks to Google Ads

By Waqas Threat actors used Google Ads to buy top search results on Google to advertise fake Brave browser websites which delivered malware as the browser's download file. This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: Fake Brave browser website dropped malware, thanks to Google Ads...

SMS authentication code includes ad: a very bad idea

SMS authentication codes are back in the news, and the word Id use to summarise their reappearance is "embattled." I can still remember a time where two-factor authentication 2FA, authentication grids, regional lockouts, Yubikeys, and offline authentication apps simply did not exist. And if they...

Facebook Sues 4 Vietnamese for Hacking Accounts and $36 Million Ad Fraud

Facebook on Tuesday revealed it filed two separate legal actions against perpetrators who abused its ad platform to run deceptive advertisements in violation of the company's Terms and Advertising Policies. "In the first case, the defendants are a California marketing company and its agents...

Is it game over for VR advergaming?

We’ve been warning about advergaming—the combination of virtual reality VR and ads—for years on the Labs Blog. I’ve given a few talks on the subject too, and how ad networks will slowly work their way into enclosed spaces formerly reserved for your head. They still might, but thanks to a recent...

A week in security (June 21 – June 27)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Want to stop ransomware attacks? Send the cybercriminals to jail, says Brian Honan: Lock and Code S02E11 Atomic research institute breached via VPN vulnerability Hotel staff bust Hermes SMS scammer with suspiciously large number of cables City of Liège hit by...

Musk-Themed ‘$SpaceX’ Cryptoscam Invades YouTube Ads

YouTube fans have been swindled out of almost $1 million and counting thanks to an extremely convincing fake SpaceX crypto-coin campaign that uses a popular decentralized finance protocol called Uniswap. The scam is rearing its Elon-Musk-themed head in ads on YouTube that show up before and after...

Mysterious Custom Malware Collects Billions of Stolen Data Points

Researchers have uncovered a 1.2-terabyte database of stolen data, lifted from 3.2 million Windows-based computers over the course of two years by an unknown, custom malware. The heisted info includes 6.6 million files and 26 million credentials, and 2 billion web login cookies – with 400 million...

Google PPC Ads Used to Deliver Infostealers

Researchers have tracked down the origins of several increasingly prevalent info-stealers – including Redline, Taurus, Tesla and Amadey – that threat actors are delivering via pay-per-click PPC ads in Google’s search results. On Wednesday, breach prevention firm Morphisec posted an advisory in...

Targeted AnyDesk Ads on Google Served Up Weaponized App

A fake version of the popular remote desktop application AnyDesk, pushed via ads appearing in Google search results, served up a trojanized version of the program. The campaign even bested AnyDesk’s own ad campaign on Google – ranking higher in its paid results. The campaign, active since April 2...

Malvertising Campaign On Google Distributed Trojanized AnyDesk Installer

Cybersecurity researchers on Wednesday publicized the disruption of a "clever" malvertising network targeting AnyDesk that delivered a weaponized installer of the remote desktop software via rogue Google ads that appeared in the search engine results pages. The campaign, which is believed to have...

How to Tell a Job Offer from an ID Theft Trap

One of the oldest scams around -- the fake job interview that seeks only to harvest your personal and financial data -- is on the rise, the FBI warns. Heres the story of a recent LinkedIn impersonation scam that led to more than 100 people getting duped, and one almost-victim who decided the job...

A week in security (May 3 – 9)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we discussed how Spectre attacks have come back from the dead; why Facebook banned Instragram ads by Signal; we highlighted the differences between the most popular VPN protocols; pointed out that Google is about to start automatically enrolling users in two-step...

Facebook ads used in spreading Facebook Messenger phishing scam

By Waqas So far, the phishing scam has targeted users in 80 countries. This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: Facebook ads used in spreading Facebook Messenger phishing scam...

SUSE: Security Advisory (SUSE-SU-2018:2319-1)

The remote host is missing an update for the SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2021 Greenbone AG Some text descriptions might be excerpted from a referenced sources, and are Copyright C by the respective right holders. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-only ifdescription...

Facebook ads dropped malware posing as Clubhouse app for PC

By Deeba Ahmed Upon clicking the ad, the user is taken to a fake Clubhouse app website that looks quite authentic but its download link drops malware. Last year, in two separate incidents hackers abused Facebook ads to phish 615,000 account credentials. Then, the infamous Ragnar Locker ransomware...

Will Google’s Privacy Sandbox take the bite out of tracking cookies?

Third-party cookies have been the lynchpin of online advertising for many years. Plans to phase cookies out forever continue to run at a steady pace, with Google in the driving seat. In 2019, it announced its vision for a “Privacy Sandbox”. The building blocks for this were essentially: 1. Most...

Google Will Use 'FLoC' for Ad Targeting Once 3rd-Party Cookies Are Dead

Signaling a major shift to its ads-driven business model, Google on Wednesday unequivocally stated it would not build alternate identifiers or tools to track users across multiple websites once it begins phasing out third-party tracking cookies from its Chrome browser by early 2022. "Instead, our...

Google Play Boots Barcode Scanner App After Ad Explosion

A barcode scanner app, with over 10 million downloads, was booted from the Google Play marketplace after users began to complain of mobile-ad overload. The makers of the app, called Barcode Scanner, intentionally altered the code of the app via an update turning it from a benign app to adware,...

PT-2021-13585 · Apple +9 · Security Update +15

Name of the Vulnerable Software and Affected Versions: macOS Big Sur versions prior to 11.2 Security Update versions prior to 2021-001 Catalina Security Update versions prior to 2021-001 Mojave watchOS versions prior to 7.3 tvOS versions prior to 14.4 iOS versions prior to 14.4 iPadOS versions...