Scammers use fake “Gemini” AI chatbot to sell fake “Google Coin”

Scammers have found a new use for AI: creating custom chatbots posing as real AI assistants to pressure victims into buying worthless cryptocurrencies. We recently came across a live "Google Coin" presale site featuring a chatbot that claimed to be Google's Gemini AI assistant. The bot guided...

US Sentences Chinese National for Role in $36.9 Million Crypto Scam

A Chinese national has been sentenced for his role in a massive $36.9 million cryptocurrency scam operated from…...

MAL-2025-148614 Malicious code in tethys-cypress-optimize-css-assets-webpack-plugin-enif (npm)

--- -= Per source details. Do not edit below this line.=- Source: amazon-inspector f105b3dd515bd0a46c837e65d9a353f5440a1ee4d2bb6b1800b64e2f8b2cb81f This package appears to be part of the tea.xyz token reward campaign that flooded npm. These packages typically contain autopublish scripts auto.js,...

WhatsApp cryptocurrency scam goes for the cash prize

This weekend a scammer tried his luck by reaching out to me on WhatsApp. It’s not that I don’t appreciate it, but trust me, it’s bad for your business. I received one message from a number hailing from the Togolese Republic. WhatsApp message from an unknow sender “Jay, your financial account has...

E-Root Marketplace Admin Sentenced to 42 Months for Selling 350K Stolen Credentials

A 31-year-old Moldovan national has been sentenced to 42 months in prison in the U.S. for operating an illicit marketplace called E-Root Marketplace that offered for sale hundreds of thousands of compromised credentials, the Department of Justice DoJ announced. Sandu Boris Diaconu was charged wit...

A new video series, Google Forms spam and the various gray areas of cyber attacks

I found the juxtaposition of stories on the Talos blog over the past week-plus kind of funny. On one hand, we had a massive story about Arid Viper, a Middle Eastern threat actor spreading spyware, one of the most dangerous types of malware out there right now, operating out of Gaza no less. Then,...

Beware: 1,000+ Fake Cryptocurrency Sites Trap Users in Bogus Rewards Scheme

A previously undetected cryptocurrency scam has leveraged a constellation of over 1,000 fraudulent websites to ensnare users into a bogus rewards scheme since at least January 2021. "This massive campaign has likely resulted in thousands of people being scammed worldwide," Trend Micro researchers...

Mastermind Behind Twitter 2020 Hack Pleads Guilty and Faces up to 70 Years in Prison

A U.K. national has pleaded guilty in the U.S. in connection with the July 2020 Twitter attack affecting numerous high-profile accounts and defrauding other users of the platform. Joseph James O'Connor, who also went by the online alias PlugwalkJoe, admitted to "his role in cyberstalking and...

Mastermind Behind Twitter 2020 Hack Pleads Guilty and Faces up to 70 Years in Prison

A U.K. national has pleaded guilty in the U.S. in connection with the July 2020 Twitter attack affecting numerous high-profile accounts and defrauding other users of the platform. Joseph James O'Connor, who also went by the online alias PlugwalkJoe , admitted to "his role in cyberstalking and...

US DoJ Seizes 7 Domains used in Pig Butchering Cryptocurrency Scam

By Deeba Ahmed Pig butchering is a scam where threat actors lure innocent investors into giving up their crypto assets and sending them to the attackers. This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: US DoJ Seizes 7 Domains used in Pig Butchering Cryptocurrency Scam...

U.S. Authorities Seize Domains Used in 'Pig butchering' Cryptocurrency Scams

The U.S. Justice Department DoJ on Monday announced the takedown of seven domain names in connection to a "pig butchering" cryptocurrency scam. The fraudulent scheme, which operated from May to August 2022, netted the actors over $10 million from five victims, the DoJ said. Pig butchering, also...

Massive Losses Define Epidemic of ‘Pig Butchering’

U.S. state and federal investigators are being inundated with reports from people whove lost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in connection with a complex investment scam known as "pig butchering," wherein people are lured by flirtatious strangers online into investing in cryptocurren...

FBI: Rise in Business Email-based Attacks a $43B Headache

The FBI warned the global cost of business email compromise BEC attacks is $43 billion for the time period of June 2016 and December 2021. According to FBI report, 241,206 complaints were lodged by the agency’s Internet Crime Center IC3. BEC or email account compromise EAC are an advanced scammin...

A week in security (April 25 – May 1)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Why MITRE matters to SMBs Apple’s child safety features are coming to a Messages app near you Why software has so many vulnerabilities, with Tanya Janca: Lock and Code S03E09 Watch out for this SMS phish promising a tax refund Rogue ads phishing for cryptocurrency:...

Elon Musk-themed cryptocurrency scam uses fake Medium as the promotion site

So Elon Musk is buying Twitter, and you can be sure that scammers are making the most of this news. As Elon Musk spends most of the week in the headlines, so pop up Elon Musk-themed scams—and it looks like they may be ramping up. We witnessed a flurry of replies from the man himself in response t...

$10m of funds goes missing in what appears to be a cryptocurrency rug-pull

There’s a lot of concern in the cryptocurrency realm at the moment. A yield farming platform "utilizing arbitrage to gain optimal yield with low risk" has gone AWOL. Site down, Twitter account deleted, no word from the team behind it explaining what happened. Worst of all, some $10 million worth ...

Another Hacker Arrested for 2020 Twitter Hack and Massive Bitcoin Scam

A U.K. citizen has been arrested in the Spanish town of Estepona over his alleged involvement in the July 2020 hack of Twitter, resulting in the compromise of 130 high-profile accounts. Joseph O'Connor, 22, has been charged with intentionally accessing a computer without authorization and obtaini...

170 fraudulent Android apps scamming cryptocurrency enthusiasts

By Deeba Ahmed So far, these fake Android app developers have managed to steal money from 93,000 users and raked in around $350,000. This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: 170 fraudulent Android apps scamming cryptocurrency enthusiasts...

Twitter Hack Update: What We Know (and What We Don't)

UPDATED 7/18 at 12:50 p.m. ET Earlier this week, Twitter locked down thousands of verified accounts, including the accounts of Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Apple, Uber and others, after it became clear that hackers had been able to compromise them. The tip-off? Suddenly these high-profile...

Several High-Profile Accounts Hacked in the Biggest Twitter Hack of All Time

Social media platform Twitter, earlier today on Wednesday, was on fire after it suffered one of the biggest cyberattacks in its history. A number of high-profile Twitter accounts, including those of US presidential candidate Joe Biden, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Uber, and Apple...