Google Pay, Drug Bots, and SIM Swaps: How Old Leaks and New Vulnerabilities Power Attacks

It starts with something simple: a CAPTCHA box on your screen. You type the number you see, because of course you do. That’s what humans do online. But what if that “CAPTCHA” wasn’t a CAPTCHA at all? In this post, I’ll walk you through how old data leaks, lazy telecom verification, and a...

SIM-Swapper, Scattered Spider Hacker Gets 10 Years

A 20-year-old Florida man at the center of a prolific cybercrime group known as "Scattered Spider " was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison today, and ordered to pay roughly $13 million in restitution to victims. Noah Michael Urban of Palm Coast, Fla. pleaded guilty in April 2025 to charges o...

A Researcher Figured Out How to Reveal Any Phone Number Linked to a Google Account

Phone numbers are a gold mine for SIM swappers. A researcher found how to get this precious piece of information through a clever brute-force attack...

Man Behind SEC Bitcoin Hoax Tweet Sentenced in SIM Swap Hack

Eric Council Jr. sentenced for 2024 SIM swap that led to fake Bitcoin ETF tweet from SEC’s X account, briefly impacting crypto markets...

Navigating Insider Risks: Are your Employees Enabling External Threats?

Attacks on your network are often meticulously planned operations launched by sophisticated threats. Sometimes your technical fortifications provide a formidable challenge, and the attack requires assistance from the inside to succeed. For example, in 2022, the FBI issued a warning1 that SIM swap...

Scattered Spider ransomware gang falls under government agency scrutiny

As you may have read in our November Ransomware Review, Scattered Spider is a relatively new, albeit dangerous, ransomware gang who made headlines in September for attacking MGM Resorts and Caesar Entertainment. For small security teams, one of the most important findings about the group is their...

Scattered Spider

SUMMARY The Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA are releasing this joint Cybersecurity Advisory CSA in response to recent activity by Scattered Spider threat actors against the commercial facilities sectors and subsectors. This advisory...

A week in security (November 06 – November 12)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Defeating Little Brother requires a new outlook on privacy: Lock and Code S04E23 Medical research data Advarra stolen after SIM swap Okta breach happened after employee logged into personal Google account Introducing ThreatDown: A new chapter for Malwarebytes...

Medical research data Advarra stolen after SIM swap

Clinical research company Advarra has reportedly been compromised after a SIM swap on one of their executives. SIM swapping, also known as SIM jacking, is the act of illegally taking over a target’s cell phone number. This can be done in a number of ways, but one of the most common methods involv...

Twitter Hacker Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison for $120,000 Crypto Scam

A U.K. citizen who took part in the massive July 2020 hack of Twitter has been sentenced to five years in prison in the U.S. Joseph James O'Connor aka PlugwalkJoe, 24, was awarded the sentence on Friday in the Southern District of New York, a little over a month after he pleaded guilty to the...

SIM swapper jailed for 18 months over crypto heist

Nicholas Truglia 25 from Florida was sentenced to 18 months on Thursday for his involvement in a digital heist that cost Michael Terpin @michaelterpin, a renowned personality in the cryptocurrency space, $23.8M. The theft happened on January 2018, where Truglia and his co-conspirators targeted...

Roblox Beamers steal items from kids

Roblox gamers are once again being warned to be on their guard against scammers plundering valuable digital items. Most multiplayer titles are all about customization. You won’t find many popular games where digital items aren’t up for grabs. Some games lock the items, such as outfits, weapons, o...

NY Man Pleads Guilty in $20 Million SIM Swap Theft

A 24-year-old New York man who bragged about helping to steal more than $20 million worth of cryptocurrency from a technology executive has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Nicholas Truglia was part of a group alleged to have stolen more than $100 million from cryptocurrency...

A Canadian Teen Was Arrested in a $36.5M SIM-Swap Heist

Plus: An FBI email hack, a cam site data leak, and more of the week's top security news...

Help Might Finally Be on the Way to Fight SIM-Swap Attacks

Plus: A cybersecurity CEO arrest, an Apple Pay hack, and more of the week's top security news...

T-Mobile customers, change your PINs

At the end of last week, T-Mobile was investigating reports of a “massive” customer data breach. A hacker claimed to stolen 100 million people’s data from T-Mobile’s servers, which included everything from names and driver licences to addresses and social security numbers. Its now confirmed...

New API Lets App Developers Authenticate Users via SIM Cards

Online account creation poses a challenge for engineers and system architects: if you put up too many barriers, you risk turning away genuine users. Make it too easy, and you risk fraud or fake accounts. The Problem with Identity Verification The traditional model of online identity –...

How to enable Facebook’s hardware key authentication for iOS and Android

Since 2017 desktop users have had the opportunity to use physical security keys to log in to their Facebook accounts. Now iOS and Android users have the same option too. Physical security keys are a more secure option for two-factor authentication 2FA than SMS which is vulnerable to SIM swap...

Fill your Boots with credential stuffing protections

Yet again another company suffers a ‘hack’ that turns out to be nothing more than a credential stuffing attack. This time Boots have stopped customers using advantage card points to pay for products. This is after 600,000 Tesco accounts were compromised in the same way. No systems at Boots were...

Mobile Carrier Customer Service Ushers in SIM-Swap Fraud

Mobile carriers have left the door wide open to SIM-swap attacks, particularly when it comes to prepaid accounts, researchers have found. SIM swapping is a form of fraud that allows crooks to bypass SMS-based two-factor authentication 2FA and crack online banking or other high-value accounts...