Something else is phishy: How to detect phishing attempts on mobile

In a report published in 2011, IBM revealed that mobile users are three times more likely to fall for phishing scams compared to desktop users. This claim was based on accessed log files found on Web servers used to host websites involved in phishing campaigns. Almost a decade later, we continue ...

A week in security (November 12 – 18)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we found out that TrickBot became a top business threat, so we took a deeper look at what's new with it. With Christmas just around the corner, the Secret Sister scam returned. We also touched on the security and privacy or lack thereof in smart jewelry, air traffi...

Social engineering attacks: What makes you susceptible?

We now live in a world where holding the door open for someone balancing a tray of steaming hot coffee—she can’t seem to get her access card out to place it near the reader—is something we need to think twice about. Courtesy isn’t dead, mind you, but in this case, you'd almost wish it were. Becau...

Malicious gaming extensions: a child’s play to infection

Did you ever lend your laptop to a child to play a video game, only to get it back filled with advertisements? Our CEO knows a little bit about that predicament, having unknowingly infected his parents' computer when he was a kid. But times have changed since then. Let us play for you a modern-da...

Update now! Microsoft patches 3 actively exploited zero-days

Another important update round for this months Patch Tuesday. Microsoft has patched a total of 63 vulnerabilities in its operating systems. Five of these vulnerabilities qualify as zero-days, with three listed as being actively exploited. Microsoft considers a vulnerability to be a zero-day if it...

Update now! Apple patches a raft of vulnerabilities

Apple has released security updates for its phones, iPads, Macs, watches and TVs. Updates are available for these products: iPhone XS and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 2nd generation and later, iPad Pro 10.5-inch, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 6th...

Update now! Atlassian Confluence vulnerability is being actively exploited

Microsoft Threat Intelligence has revealed that it has been tracking the active exploitation of a vulnerability in Atlassian Confluence software since September 14, 2023. At the time the attacks were first observed the vulnerability was a zero-day, meaning that no update was available, so defende...

When can we get rid of passwords for good?

Or perhaps I should have asked, "Can we ever get rid of passwords for good?" The security world knows passwords are a problem. Products ship with default passwords that are never changed. People reuse old passwords or adopt easy-to-guess passwords that hackers easily defeat via brute force. Or...

5 simple steps to securing your remote employees

As remote working has become standard practice, employees are working from anywhere and using any device they can to get the job done. That means repeated connections to unsecured public Wi-Fi networks—at a coffee shop or juice bar, for example—and higher risks for data leaks from lost, misplaced...

No man’s land: How a Magecart group is running a web skimming operation from a war zone

Our Threat Intelligence team has been monitoring the activities of a number of threat actors involved in the theft of credit card data. Often referred to under the Magecart moniker, these groups use simple pieces of JavaScript code skimmers typically injected into compromised e-commerce websites ...

Spectre, Google, and the Universal Read Gadget

Spectre, a seemingly never ending menace to processors, is back in the limelight once again thanks to the Universal Read Gadget. First seen at the start of 2018, Spectre emerged alongside Meltdown as a major potential threat to people’s system security. Meltdown and Spectre Meltdown targeted Inte...

QNAP customers urged to disable AFP to protect against severe vulnerabilities

MacOS users that have a network-attached storage NAS device made by QNAP are being advised to disable the Apple Filing Protocol AFP on their devices until some severe vulnerabilities have been fixed. But QNAP is not the only vendor that needed to fix these vulnerabilities. Others have already don...

Labs report: Malicious AI is coming—is the security world ready?

Imagine a world in which artificial intelligence has gone rogue—the robots have revolted against their masters and have now enslaved all of humanity. There's no more natural beauty in the world and everything is awful. Get that out of your system? Good. The reality of malicious AI, at least in th...

The top six takeaways for user privacy

Last week, Malwarebytes Labs began closing out our data privacy and cybersecurity law blog series, a two-month long exploration spanning five continents, 50 states, just as many data breach notification laws, three non-universal definitions of personal information and personal data, five pending ...

DEFCON 25

After a few days in Las Vegas and after BlackHat, DEFCON 25 is finally over! It was an amazing time around awesome people. I didn't attend all the talks, but most of the ones I saw were interesting: There's no place like 127.0.0.1 - Achieving reliable DNS rebinding in modern browsers, by Luke...

Smart lights vulnerable to "blink and you'll miss it" attack

Over the last couple of years, key parts of our daily lives have been sliding into some form of Internet connectivity. Smartphones and other devices have become necessities. Paying bills? Those systems have moved online. Tax? Online. Wage slips and bank statements? Its paperless time. Welfare...

[updated] Important update! iPhones, Macs, and more vulnerable to zero-day bug

On Monday, Apple released a long list of patched vulnerabilities to its software, including a new zero-day flaw affecting Macs and iPhones. The company revealed it's aware that threat actors may have been actively exploiting this vulnerability, which is tracked as CVE-2022-32917. As it's a...

How to protect RDP

You didn’t really think that the ransomware wave was coming to an end, did you? You may be tempted to think so, given the decline in reports about massive ransomware campaigns. Dont be fooled. Over the last five years, one of the primary attack vectors for ransomware attacks has been the Remote...

CNA legal filings lift the curtain on a Phoenix CryptoLocker ransomware attack

Two months after fully restoring its systems, CNA Financial, the leading US insurance company that was attacked by a group using Phoenix CryptoLocker ransomware, issued a legal notice of an information security incident to the Consumer Protection Bureau in New Hampshire. You may recall that Phoen...

QR code scam can clean out your bank account

“Excuse me sir, can I ask you for a favor? I want to pay for parking my car in this spot, but there are no machines around that accept cash. If I give you five dollars in cash, can you pay the parking for me? All you need to do is scan this QR code with your banking app.” Of course, John felt the...

Business email compromise scam costs Pathé $21.5 million

Recently released court documents show that European-based cinema chain Pathé lost a small fortune to a business email compromise BEC scam in March 2018. How much? An astonishing US$21.5 million roughly 19 million euros. The attack, which ran for about a month, cost the company 10 percent of its...

Another one bites the dust: Avaddon ransomware group shuts down operation

Are you seeing some pattern here? In what could be a called "shocking news" on Friday, BleepingComputer revealed that the gang behind the Avaddon ransomware shut down its operations after releasing more than 2,000 decryption keys to the technology news site. BleepingComputer claimed they received...

SUPERNOVA malware discovered on SolarWinds Orion server

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA has reported finding the SUPERNOVA web shell collecting credentials on a SolarWinds Orion server. These observations were made during an incident response to an Advanced Persistent Threat APT actor’s year-long compromise of an enterprise...

A week in security (February 15 – February 21)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, the spotlight fell on the State of Malware 2021 report, wherein we have seen cyberthreats evolve. We also touched on ransomware, such as Egregor and a tactic known as Remote Desktop Protocol RDP brute forcing that has long been part of the ransomware operators...

Sodinokibi ransomware gang auctions off stolen data

Is it legal to buy stolen data from criminals? In most countries the answer would be no. But will it lead to a penalty or a fine? That is a different question and I’m afraid some companies and organizations will be inclined to seriously consider the last question even when they know the answer to...

Compromising vital infrastructure: transport and logistics

Back when I was a dispatcher for a courier and trucking company, we used to joke that it only took a few strategically-placed accidents to cause a traffic jam that could completely stop circulation around the city of Rotterdam. Rotterdam is one of the major ports in the world and consequently,...

Obfuscated Coinhive shortlink reveals larger mining operation

During the past several months, in-browser mining has continued to affect a large number of websites, predominantly relying on Coinhive's infamous API. We documented several campaigns on this blog, in particular Drupalgeddon, where attackers are taking advantage of vulnerabilities in popular...

Update Android now! Google patches three actively exploited zero-days

In Julys update for the Android operating system OS, Google has patched 43 vulnerabilities, three of which are actively exploited zero-day vulnerabilities. The security bulletin notes that there are indications that these three vulnerabilities may be under limited, targeted exploitation. If your...

How not to buy drugs on the Internet

Disclaimer: This post is satirical in nature and meant to educate on the proliferation of scams, misinformation, and traps set up to trick those engaging in illicit or illegal activities online. Malwarebytes does not condone buying drugs on the Internet. Perhaps you're sitting at work one day whe...

How much personalization is too much?

This story originally ran in The Parallax on January 25, 2019, and was written by Dan Tynan. In 2012, when Target used data analytics to identify customers who were expecting a baby, then mailed them coupons for maternity clothing and nursery furniture, it inadvertently revealed a teenage girl’s...

Apache ActiveMQ vulnerability used in ransomware attacks

On the 27 October, the Apache Software Foundation ASF announced a very serious vulnerability in Apache ActiveMQ that can be used to achieve remote code execution RCE. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has now added this vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities...

New ESXiArgs encryption routine outmaneuvers recovery methods

In what seems to be a typical arms race where one side responds to counter the progress the other side has made, the ransomware group behind the massive attack on ESXi Virtual Machines VMs has come up with a new variant that can no longer be decrypted with the recovery script released by the...

Unusual sign-in activity mail goes phishing for Microsoft account holders

We’ve received an interesting spam email which deliberately or not could get people thinking about the current international crisis. Being on your guard will pay dividends over the coming days and weeks, as more of the below is sure to follow. Unusual sign-in activity detected? The emails subject...

Going dark: encryption and law enforcement

UPDATE, 05/22/2020: In the advent of the EARN IT Act, the debate on government subversion of encryption has reignited. Given that the material conditions of the technology have not changed, and the arguments given in favor of the bill are not novel, we've decided to republish the following blog...

Update now! Microsoft patches a whopping 130 vulnerabilities

Its that time of the month again. For the July 2023 Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has issued security updates for 130 vulnerabilities. Nine of the vulnerabilities are rated as critical and four of them are known to be actively exploited. The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency CISA has...

Zyxel patches two critical vulnerabilities

Zyxell has released a security advisory for multiple buffer overflow vulnerabilities. Exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow an unauthenticated attacker to cause denial-of-service DoS conditions and even a remote code execution on the affected Zyxell firewalls. Affected users should...

Hat trick for Google as it patches two more zero-days in Chrome

Slightly over a week ago we advised you to update your Chrome browser. That warning came only a week or so after we advised you to update your Chrome browser. Things are getting a bit repetitive round here. Today, we are compelled to repeat that statement as Google has issued patches for two new...

A week in security (November 25 – December 1)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we discussed why the notion of "data as property" may potentially hurt more than help, homed in on sextortion scammers getting more creative, and explored the possible security risks Americans might face if the US changed to universal healthcare coverage. Other...

Magecart criminals caught stealing with their poker face on

Earlier in June, we documented how Magecart credit card skimmers were found on Amazon S3. This was an interesting development, since threat actors weren't actively targeting specific e-commerce shops, but rather were indiscriminately injecting any exposed S3 bucket. Ever since then, we've monitor...

Awakening the beast: BatMobi adware

On February 12, a patron of the Malwarebytes Forum alerted us of an issue with ad redirects that seemed to come out of nowhere. An outcry from other commenters filled the forum thread, all experiencing the same redirects to the same exact websites. Our web protection team traced the offending...

Merging Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram: a technical, reputational hurdle

Secure messaging is supposed to be just that—secure. That means no backdoors, strong encryption, private messages staying private, and, for some users, the ability to securely communicate without giving up tons of personal data. So, when news broke that scandal-ridden, online privacy pariah...

6 security concerns to consider when automating your business

Automation is an increasingly-enticing option for businesses, especially when those in operations are in a perpetual cycle of "too much to do and not enough time to do it." When considering an automation strategy, business representatives must be aware of any security risks involved. Here are six...

Google logins: JavaScript now required

Google users: In news that may sound alarming, it is now a requirement for you to enable JavaScript. Why? When your username and password are entered on Google’s sign-in page, Google runs a risk assessment and only allows the sign-in if nothing looks suspicious. Recently, Google went about...

Browlock flies under the radar with complete obfuscation

Browlocks are the main driving force behind tech support scams, using a combination of malvertising and clever browser locker tricks to fool users. In fact, the effects can be so convincing that people call the rogue Microsoft support number for help because they believe their computer has been...

Fileless malware: getting the lowdown on this insidious threat

Traditionally, malware attacks as we have always known them are files written to disk in one form or another that require execution in order to carry out their malicious scope. Fileless malware, on the other hand, is intended to be memory resident only, ideally leaving no trace after its executio...

Liar, liar, pants on fire! Barclays phish claims cards explode

We feel compelled to relay the dire warning from this Barclays snail-mail letter, which we acquired through social media, therefore it must be true. Warning: Barclays debit cards may catch fire! The letter reads as follows: Dear costumer, Many of our bank costumers have reported that their debit...

Malwarebytes CrackMe 2: try another challenge

Last November, we released the first edition of the Malwarebytes CrackMe. Encouraged by the positive response we received from the security community, we decided to repeat the game, hopefully making it even more interesting and entertaining. As before, the CrackMe is dedicated to malware analysts...

Update now! May 2023 Patch Tuesday tackles three zero-days

Its that time of the month again: We're looking at May's Patch Tuesday roundup. Microsoft has released its monthly update, and while the total number of patched vulnerabilities is relatively low at 38, among them are three zero-day vulnerabilities. Microsoft classifies a vulnerability as a zero-d...

2K games helpdesk abused to spread RedLine malware

On September 20, 2022, the official Twitter account for 2K Support tweeted an important message from the Customer Support team. The tweet said an unauthorized party illegally accessed the credentials of one of the vendors of the helpdesk platform. The attacker then used that access to send out...

5 Linux malware families SMBs should protect themselves against

There’s no shortage of reasons why an SMB might use Linux to run their business: There are plenty of distros to choose from, it’s generally free, and perhaps above all — it’s secure. The common wisdom goes that Linux malware is rare, and for the most part this is true. Thanks to its built-in...