Cybersecurity pros think the enemy is winning

There is a saying in security that the bad guys are always one step ahead of defense. Two new sets of research reveal that the constant cat-and-mouse game is wearing on security professionals, and many feel they are losing in the war against cybercriminals. The first figures are from the...

Information operations on Twitter: new data released on election tampering

Back in April, we talked about the wealth of options available to Russian hackers and others launching social engineering campaigns, whether on social networks or through clever attacks launched via Advanced Persistent Threats. Some of that was information published by Twitter at the time in...

A week in security (July 16 – July 22)

Last week on Labs, we looked at a Magniber expansion, explored open source vulnerabilities, and checked out the boons and drawbacks of smart assistants. We also continued our ad blocking article extravaganza, gave a whistlestop tour of third-party problems, and published our Q2 Cybercrime tactics...

Tech support scam uses fake Shoppers Stop site to lure thousands

Update 2018-05-17: Shoppers Stop is a legitimate company based out of India and their brand was abused by scammers. These days, there are a lot of browser locker campaigns fueled by malvertising or redirection from hacked sites. But the Shoppers Stop tech scam campaign is actually a bit of both,...

Physician, protect thyself: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

In part one of our Physician, protect thyself series, we recognized significant security problems within the healthcare industry that need addressing. Health organizations moving from the paper to the 'puter—a shift meant to improve care and overall patient experience—inadvertently introduced...

Malvertising on Equifax, TransUnion tied to third party script (updated)

Update 10-16-2017: More information regarding the third-party script fireclick.js and the domain it contacted netflame.cc was revealed by the Wall Street Journal. That domain once was used by Digital River Inc., an e-commerce and digital-marketing vendor, for a now-defunct web-analytics product...

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...

[Updated] Infected CCleaner downloads from official servers

Update 9/19/2017: Avast posted a clarification explaining what happened and giving a timeline of the events. One point we should take note of is that the breach preceded the take-over of Piriform by Avast. Users that are unsure whether they were affected by this and whether their data may have be...

419 spam: 10 million US dollars, courtesy of “Rev. Goodluck Ebola”

I'm not saying an email claiming to be from the "Central Bank of Nigeria" with a contact handler named "Rev. Goodluck Ebola" will raise too many red flags, but… Click to Enlarge CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR Zaria Street, Off Samuel Akintola Street,Garki 11, Garki-Abuja. Our Ref:...

A week in security (August 21 – August 27)

In our blog posts, we announced the introduction of, and explained the necessity for, real-time protection for our Mac and Android users. Also explaining what you can expect them to do for you and answering the questions that we expect to be frequently asked. We looked at 4 key steps you can take...

Fake Google and Cloudflare verification pages spread multiple malware families

Updated July 6 to add connections with SyncTDS and TrafficTDS ClickFix attacks, which trick people into running malicious commands themselves, continue to evolve. This latest campaign uses fake Google and Cloudflare verification pages to convince victims to infect their own devices. A single...

Recently-patched Apache Struts vulnerability used in worldwide attacks

Attackers are exploiting a critical vulnerability in Apache Struts 2 that was patched recently. Struts is a very popular open source platform to develop applications and websites. On December 7, 2023, Apache announced versions 6.3.0.2 and 2.5.33 of Struts were now available to address a potential...

2023 MITRE ATT&CK® Evaluation results: Malwarebytes earns high marks for detection, blocks initial malware executions

MITRE Engenuity released its 2023 ATT&CK Evaluation results, with Malwarebytes blocking initial malware executions and earning high marks for detection. The evaluation tested 30 vendor solutions against Turla, a sophisticated Russia-based advanced persistent threat APT group with victims in over ...

DoppelPaymer ransomware group disrupted

Europol has announced it has arrested two suspected core members of the DoppelPaymer ransomware group. On 28 February, the German Regional Police and the Ukrainian National Police, with support from Europol, the Dutch Police, and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations FBI, apprehended...

Fake Amazon Prime email abuses LinkedIn's URL shortener

Over the last few days, scammers have been sending out phishing mails that disguise bogus URLs with something called Slinks--shortened Linkedin URLs. The shortened URLs redirect users to a different URL when they are clicked. If youve ever seen a Tiny URL, or a Bit.ly link, youll already be...

Business Services industry targeted across the country for backdoor access

The presence of so many hacking tools in the detections for the Business Services industry tells a story about these organizations being targeted for not only infection, but to establish backdoors and likely gain access to customers of the organizations through the victims network. Just like...

Escobar is the new Android banking Trojan we’ve met before

Aberebot, a known Android banking Trojan, has changed its name and returned loaded with new features. First spotted by @MalwareHunterTeam in early March, this mobile variant was renamed "Escobar"—a homage to the Colombian drug baron—and disguised itself as a McAfee app. It went by the package nam...

The three most significant cyberattacks of 2021

People that predict tomorrow’s weather by looking at today’s are often right. Cloudy today? Itll probably be cloudy tomorrow. The same is often true for cybersecurity threats. Looking back at 2021 it looks a lot like 2020: A lot of ransomware attacks. So, when I was asked to write about the three...

A week in security (Nov 22 – Nov 28)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs How to defend your website against card skimmers Security researchers play peek-a-boo with Conti ransomware server Windows 10 chills out, gives sysadmins a break Please dont buy this! 3 gift card scams to watch out for this Black Friday Millions of GoDaddy customer...

Chrome users, here’s how to opt out of the Google FLoC trial

Two weeks after Google launched a trial to replace run-of-the-mill online user tracking with new-fangled online user tracking, several companies and organizations have pushed back, criticizing the new technology—called FLoC—which is designed to respect peoples privacy more, as a detriment to user...

A week in security (March 29 – April 4)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, our podcast featured Malwarebytes senior security researcher JP Taggart, who talked to us about why you need to trust your VPN. You’ve likely heard the benefits of using a VPN: You can watch TV shows restricted to certain countries, you can encrypt your web traffic...

Teen behind 2020 Twitter hack pleads guilty

The so-called “mastermind” behind the 2020 Twitter hack that compromised the accounts of several celebrities and public figures—including President Barack Obama, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk—pleaded guilty to several charges on Tuesday in a Florida court. As part of an agreed-upon plea deal with...

Lock and Code S1Ep15: Safely using Google Chrome Extensions with Pieter Arntz

This week on Lock and Code, we discuss the top security headlines generated right here on Labs and around the Internet. In addition, we talk to Pieter Arntz, malware intelligence researcher for Malwarebytes, about Google Chrome extensions. These sometimes helpful online tools that work directly...

Copycat criminals abuse Malwarebytes brand in malvertising campaign

While exploit kit activity has been fairly quiet for some time now, we recently discovered a threat actor creating a copycat—fake—Malwarebytes website that was used as a gate to the Fallout EK, which distributes the Raccoon stealer. The few malvertising campaigns that remain are often found on...

There’s an app for that: web skimmers found on PaaS Heroku

Criminals love to abuse legitimate services—especially platform-as-a-service Paas cloud providers—as they are a popular and reliable hosting commodity used to support both business and consumer ventures. Case in point, in April 2019 we documented a web skimmer served on code repository GitHub...

Helping survivors of domestic abuse: What to do when you find stalkerware

We’re going to talk about something different today. We’re going to talk about domestic abuse. Earlier this year, cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab announced that the latest upgrade to its Android app would inform users about whether their devices were running stealthy, behind-the-scenes...

US Congress proposes comprehensive federal data privacy legislation—finally

The United States might be the only country of its size—both in economy and population—to lack a comprehensive data privacy law protecting its citizens’ online lives. That could change this year. Never-ending cybersecurity breaches, recently-enacted international privacy laws, public outrage, and...

A conversation with America Geeks

Thanks to NeeP for contributing significant research. You can check out NeeP's YouTube channel here. Malwarebytes has written quite a bit about tech support scammers, typically focusing on new scam techniques as they arise with new threat actor groups. But sometimes our research discovers scammer...

Keeping your business and personal instant messages secure

Most people want to know their instant messages are securely wrapped up—whether that's for personal privacy or making sure online scammers can't grab the message content. If you're sending text on a sensitive topic, or perhaps some photo attachments intended for one person only, you definitely...

A week in security (February 19 – February 25)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we gave readers a primer on encryption, took a stab at that Deepfakes tool Internet users seem to be interested in, and started a new series that talks about GDPR. We also looked at a drive-by download campaign that starts in booby-trapped Chinese websites that dro...

When cybersecurity isn’t all cyber: What does it really take to work in cybersecurity?

With the multitude of breaches and outbreaks already witnessed in 2017, it's become clear that industries across all verticals are challenged by cybersecurity. This is a serious business problem that needs to be addressed ASAP. As much talk as there is about organizations getting hacked, scores o...

CISA urges urgent patching of two actively exploited Citrix NetScaler vulnerabilities

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA has added two Citrix NetScaler vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, and it has set the “due date” a week after they were added. Federal Civilian Executive Branch FCEB agencies are handed specific deadlines for wh...

Amazon Prime email scammer snatches defeat from the jaws of victory

More often than not, its our solemn duty on this site to keep you informed about the nature and tactics of dangerous, cunnning, and persistent cybercriminals. This is not one of those days. In fact, this is the oppposite of one of those days. This is about a passable spam email sent by a spammer...

Patch now! Citrix Sharefile joins the list of actively exploited file sharing software

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA has added a vulnerability to its catalog of know exploited vulnerabilities, based on evidence of active exploitation. This means that Federal Civilian Executive Branch FCEB agencies need to remediate this vulnerability by September 6, 2023...

Google fixes "Bad.Build" Cloud Build flaw, researchers say it's not enough

Researchers at Orca Security have found a design flaw in the Google Cloud Build service. Attackers would have been able to gain Privilege Escalation resulting in unauthorized access to code repositories in Googles Artifact Registry. The researchers dubbed the vulnerability Bad.Build and say it...

Update now! Apple issues patches for three actively used zero-days

Apple has rolled out security updates for Safari 16.5, watchOS 9.5, tvOS 16.5, iOS 16.5, iPadOS 16.5, iOS 15.7.6, iPadOS 15.7.6, macOS Big Sur 11.7.7, macOS Ventura 13.4, and macOS Monterey 12.6.6. Among the security updates were patches for three actively exploited zero-day vulnerabilities. All...

Update VPN Plus Server now! Synology patches vulnerability with a CVSS of 10

Synology has issued an advisory about a vulnerability that allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands through a susceptible version of Synology VPN Plus Server. VPN Plus Server VPN Plus Server allows users to turn their Synology Router into a Virtual Rrivate Network VPN server. A VPN...

Beyond the VPN: Ultimate online privacy, with The Tor Project’s Isabela Bagueros: Lock and Code S02E20

"What does online privacy mean to you?" This beguilingly simply question can produce dozens of overlapping and distinct answers, all depending on who you ask. A VPN service might tell you that online privacy means obscuring your IP address and hiding your Internet activity from your Internet...

Microsoft exec reveals “routine” secrecy orders from government investigators

Microsoft executive Tom Burt told Congressional lawmakers Wednesday that Federal law enforcement agencies send “routine” secret orders for customer information from the Seattle-based company, numbering anywhere from 2,400 to 3,500 such requests a year. “While the recent news about secret...

How a Resident Evil image leaked in a ransomware attack ended up in the middle of $12m copyright claim

Back in November, gaming giant Capcom suffered a ransomware attack. In its press notification, it mentioned the various types of data potentially grabbed by their attackers. Things took an ominous turn when they refused to pay the ransom, and the group behind the attack said that was the wrong...

“Huge upsurge” in DDoS attacks during pandemic

Researchers at Netscout have released a report analyzing the malicious internet traffic of 2020 and comparing it to the years before. Some of the results were as expected: Brute-forcing credentials and more targeting towards internet-connected devices were foreseeable and have been discussed at...

Cryptomining containers caught coining cryptocurrency covertly

In traditional software development, programmers code an application in one computing environment before deploying it to a similar, but often slightly different environment. This leads to bugs or errors that only show up when the software is deployed—exactly when you need them least. To solve for...

What Google learned from 1 billion evil email scams

Google and researchers at Stanford University have released an in-depth study analysing 5 months of phishing / malware mails sent globally. "Who is targeted by email-based phishing and malware? Measuring factors that differentiate risk" looked at more than a billion mails. The results were then f...

Update your iOS now! Apple patches three zero-day vulnerabilities

Apple has patched three vulnerabilities in iOS and iPadOS that were actively being exploited in targeted attacks. Vulnerabilities that are being exploited in the wild without a patch being available are referred to as zero-days. The vulnerabilities were found and disclosed by Google’s Project Zer...

Spotlight on Troldesh ransomware, aka ‘Shade’

Despite the decline in the number of ransomware infections over the last year, there are several ransomware families that are still active. Ransom.Troldesh, aka Shade, is one of them. According to our product telemetry, Shade has experienced a sharp increase in detections from Q4 2018 to Q1 2019...

Interview with a malware hunter: Jérôme Segura

In our series "Interview with a malware hunter," our feature role today goes to Jérôme Segura, Malwarebytes’ Head of Threat Intelligence and world-renowned exploit kits researcher. The goal of this series is to introduce our readers to our malware intelligence crew by involving them in these Q&A...

Data scraping treasure trove found in the wild

We bring word of yet more data exposure, in the form of “nonsensitive” data scraping to the tune of 66m records across 3 large databases. The information was apparently scraped from various sources and left to gather dust, for anyone lucky enough to stumble upon it. What is data scraping? The...

When Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) is not enough

As cybercriminals continue to validate the reality that no prevention-based security control is going to stop every threat every time, companies are expanding beyond prevention-only approaches and closing the gap with endpoint detection and response solutions. But as we consider this strategy, on...

Explained: What is big data?

If the pile of manure is big enough, you will find a gold coin in it eventually. This saying is used often to explain why anyone would use big data. Needless to say, in this day and age, the piles of data are so big, you might end up finding a pirate’s treasure. How big is the pile? But when is t...

5 ways to find and fix open source vulnerabilities

Guest post by Limor Wainstein A recent discovery of surreptitious execution of cryptomining code by a sandboxed app, riding piggyback on the open source software OSS ecosystem, raises pertinent questions about the security of open source code and its dependencies. Programmers often use OSS as a...