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...

Ransomware: Why do backups fail when you need them most?

Its widely known, and endlessly repeated, that the last, best line of defence against the potentially devastating effects of a ransomware attack is your backups. So why do we keep hearing things like this: Were also feeling relatively confident, we have a very good backup system … and then we fin...

Firefox reveals sponsored ad “suggestions” in search and address bar

Mozilla is trying a novel experiment into striking a balance between ad revenue generation and privacy protection by implementing a new way to deliver ads in its Firefox web browser—presenting them as “suggestions” whenever users type into the dual-use search and URL address bar. The advertising...

A week in security (August 16 – August 22)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Podcast: Katie Moussouris hacked Clubhouse. Her emails went unanswered for weeks. How to troubleshoot hardware problems that look like malware problems. Analysts “strongly believe” the Russian state colludes with ransomware gangs. macOS 11’s hidden security...

Analysts “strongly believe” the Russian state colludes with ransomware gangs

"We have the smoke, the smell of gunpowder and a bullet casing. But we do not have the gun to link the activity to the Kremlin." This is what Jon DiMaggio, Chief Security Stretegist for Analyst1, said in an interview with CBS News following the release of its latest whitepaper, entitled "Nation...

ID theft ghouls targeting Surfside victims is appalling, but no surprise

We’ve written at length about account compromise and identity theft, and how criminals will often hijack accounts belonging to dead people. In many ways, it’s the perfect crime for anyone indulging in social engineering. The amount of abandoned accounts due to death can only ever go up, and nobod...

Beware, crypto-scammer seeks foreigner with BLOCK CHAIN ACCOUNT

We’ve observed a 419-style scam also known as an advance fee scam which combines the promise of cryptocurrency riches with WhatsApp conversation. The mail, which arrived with the subject "Urgent respond", begins as follows: Greetings to you my friend, My name is Haifa Kalfan, I am the Store manag...

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...

A week in security (June 14 – June 20)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: How to delete your Instagram account. Working from home? You’re probably being spied on. Another one bites the dust: Avaddon ransomware group shuts down operation. Patch now! Apple fixes in-the-wild iPhone vulnerabilities. Windows 10 to retire in four years or 52...

A week in security (June 7 – June 13)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Amazon SIdewalk starts sharing your WiFi data tomorrow, thanks White hat, black hat, grey hat hackers: what’s the difference? Can two VPN “wrongs” make a right? Lock and Code S02E10 DOJ recovers pipeline ransom, signals more aggressive approach to cybercrime 800...

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...

150,000 Verkada security cameras hacked—to make a point

Hackers were able to gain access to camera feeds from Verkada, a tech company that specializes in video security and physical access control, to demonstrate how prevalent surveillance is, reports say. Unfortunately, it also exposed the inner workings of hospitals, clinics, and mental health...

MSPs, have you picked the right PSA for you yet?

Not long ago, we helped MSPs pick the right remote monitoring and management RMM platform for them, and make it an essential part of their service toolkit. As you may recall, an RMM is a tool that helps MSPs do the work. And what better way to track the work—and other elements associated with...

Missing person scams: what to watch out for

Social media has a long history of people asking for help or giving advice to other users. One common feature is the ubiquitous “missing person” post. You’ve almost certainly seen one, and may well have amplified such a Facebook post, or Tweet, or even blog. The sheer reach and virality of social...

VPNs are mainstream, which is good news

Virtual private networks VPNs have been growing in popularity for the last three years, a notable trend revealed in a collaborative report PDF by Top10VPN and GlobalWebIndex. This year is no different. When a majority of the world’s internet users are in isolation due to the COVID-19 global...

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...

A week in security (September 23 – 29)

Last week on Labs, we highlighted an Emotet campaign using Snowden’s new book as a lure, discussed how 15,000 webcams are vulnerable to attack, how insurance data security laws skirt political turmoil, and how the new iOS exploit checkm8 allows permanent compromise of iPhones. Other cybersecurity...

DEF CON 27 retrospective: badge life redux

Kickstarter or DEF CON attendee? Be forewarned, this light overview contains some mild spoilers. If you want the purest “Da Bomb” experience with no web-based OSINT hints, read no further. I’m not revealing any earth-shattering secrets here, but figured it was worth mentioning. Also DEF CON is ov...

How brain-machine interface (BMI) technology could create an Internet of Thoughts

She plugged the extension for car transportation in the brain-machine interface connectors at the right side of her head, and off she went. The traffic was relatively slow, so there was no need to stop working. She answered a few more emails, then unplugged her work extension. Weekend mode could...

Everything you need to know about ATM attacks and fraud: part 2

This is the second and final installment of our two-part series on automated teller machine ATM attacks and fraud. In part 1, we identified the reasons why ATMs are vulnerable—from inherent weaknesses of its frame to its software—and delved deep into two of the four kinds of attacks against them:...

Making the case: How to get the board to invest in government cybersecurity

Security leaders are no longer simply expected to design and implement a security strategy for their organization. As a key member of the business—and one that often sits in the C-suite—CISOs and security managers must demonstrate business acumen. In fact, Gartner estimates by 2020, 100 percent o...

Location data leaks from family tracking app database

An app called Family Locator, which allows family members to keep track of one another recently experienced an exposed database issue of the worst kind. Specifically: the MongoDB database was left exposed with no password, like so many other recent infosec tales of woe. The end result is the...

A week in security (August 13 – August 19)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we talked about how Process Doppelgänging meets Process Hollowing in the Osiris dropper, provided hints, tips, and links for a safer school year, gave a recap of Black Hat USA 2018, offered some tips for a secure content management system, highlighted a silly...

Exploring the virtual worlds of advergaming

Games and analytics services ran into one another headfirst recently, in a spat related to the game Conan Exiles. Developers had to remove a tracking service, which allowed game developers to track where Steam players had come from. By generating an API key and integrating it into the game,...

HTTPS: why the green padlock is not enough

When goods get sold in large quantities, the price goes down. This might not be the first law of economics, but it’s applicable. An extrapolation of this is that if there are practically no production costs and no raw materials involved, prices of such goods will drop to zero. Usually, they will ...

Panerabread.com breach could have impacted millions

Customers who signed up for a Panerabread.com account in order to order fast-casual baked goods may want to guard their dough. Security researcher Brian Krebs reported yesterday that the website for the bakery chain leaked millions of customer records, including names, emails, physical addresses,...

What Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica problem means for your data

As you may already know, there's been a security meltdown at Facebook, thanks to a company called Cambridge Analytica and Donald Trump. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg insists it wasn't a breach, which is technically true. But that doesn't change the fact that the data of 50 million users was obtain...

When you shouldn’t trust a trusted root certificate

Root certificates are the cornerstone of authentication and security in software and on the Internet. They're issued by a certified authority CA and, essentially, verify that the software/website owner is who they say they are. We have talked about certificates in general before, but a recent eve...

IRISSCON security conference comes to Dublin in November

It's that time of the year when IRISSCON—the biggest security conference in Ireland, in my humble opinion—springs into life with a great collection of talks and Capture the Flag events. Held on November 23 in Dublin, there will be a strong focus on working in Infosec this year, alongside some of...

Keychain vulnerability in macOS

On Monday, Patrick Wardle, a respected security researcher at Synack and owner of Objective-See, sent a tweet about a keychain vulnerability he had found in macOS High Sierra. As his tweet showed, it is possible for a malicious app to extract, and then exfiltrate, keychain data from High Sierra,...

Don’t let these gaming threats give you a Game Over

With EGX, the biggest gaming event in the UK opening its doors today, we thought it'd be timely to remind you of some of the threats currently facing gamers. No matter what type of game, client, or system you use, there's always something waiting to try and give you a bad day where the safety of...

7 tips to stay cyber safe this summer

You’ve probably already seen the back-to-school ads on TV and rolled your eyes a little bit. We’re with you: There’s still plenty of summer left. That’s why we want to remind you about some of the cybersecurity pitfalls you might encounter during the remainder of the summer season. Whether you’re...

A week in security (June 26 – July 02)

Last week, we offered our readers tips on how to detect phishing attempts, gave an overview of Google's Be Internet Awesome campaign, supplemented an ongoing series on adware, and introduced the Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection to those who aren't already in the know. We also pushed out a number ...

Passwords in the age of AI: We need to find alternatives

For decades, passwords have been our default method for keeping online accounts safe. But in the age of artificial intelligence, this traditional security method is facing challenges it was never built to withstand. A team at Cybernews conducted a study of over 19 billion newly exposed passwords...

Microsoft patches 34 vulnerabilities, including one zero-day

December’s Patch Tuesday is a relatively quiet one on the Microsoft front. Redmond has patched 34 vulnerabilities with only four rated as critical. One vulnerability, a previously disclosed unpatched vulnerability in AMD central processing units CPUs, was shifted by AMD to software developers. Th...

Update now! WinRAR files can be abused to run malware

A new version of the file archiving software WinRAR fixes two vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to execute code on a target system. All the victim has to do is to open a specially crafted archive. After receiving a report about the vulnerability in June, a new version of the software w...

PCMag ranks Malwarebytes #1 cybersecurity vendor

PCMag, one of the most trusted publications by IT professionals, named Malwarebytes the 1 most-recommended security software vendor on its list of Best Tech Brands for 2023. The ranking is based on a Net Promoter Score NPS, a composite rating based on customer reviews from PCMag's Readers Choice...

MOVEit discloses THIRD critical vulnerability

In chess, the threefold repetition rule states that a player may claim a draw if the same position occurs three times during the game. Whether this means that customers of the popular file transfer utility MOVEit Transfer can ask for their money back remains to be seen, but we do hope it signals...

Smart home assistants at risk from "NUIT" ultrasound attack

A new form of attack named "Near Ultrasound Inaudible Trojan" NUIT has been unveiled by researchers from the University of Texas. NUIT is designed to attack voice assistants with malicious commands remotely via the internet. Impacted assistants include Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and Google Assistant...

Mortal Kombat ransomware forms tag team with crypto-stealing malware

An "unidentified actor" is making use of these two malicious files to cause combo-laden mayhem on desktops around the world, according to new research from Talos. The tag-team campaign serves up ransomware known as Mortal Kombat, which borrows the name made famous by the video game, and Laplas...

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...

Update now! Critical patches for Chrome and Edge

Google has released an update for its Chrome browser that includes 30 security fixes. The latest version of the stable channel is now Chrome 101.0.4951.41 for Windows, Mac and Linux. This version addresses vulnerabilities that an attacker could exploit to take control of an affected system...

Fake Esports voting sites looking to phish Steam users

We’ve seen Esports occasionally become the focus of gaming or Steam scams. One particular tactic of note was to claim joining an official league is an easy process. Links to third-party hosted files would offer up a supposedly cracked ESEA Esports league client. In reality, it was a data stealing...

Why Macs are the best, according to Mac expert Thomas Reed: Lock and Code S02E23

In the year 2021, the war for computer superiority has a clear winner, and it is the Macintosh, by Apple. The companys Pro model laptops are finally, belatedly equipped with ports that have been standard in other computers for years. The companys beleaguered "butterfly" keyboard has seemingly bee...

Password usage analysis of brute force attacks on honeypot servers

As Microsoft’s Head of Deception, Ross Bevington is responsible for setting up and maintaining honeypots that look like legitimate systems and servers. Honeypot systems are designed to pose as an attractive target for attackers. Sometimes they are left vulnerable to create a controllable and safe...

Katie Moussouris hacked Clubhouse. Her emails went unanswered for weeks: Lock and Code S02E15

Nearly one year after the exclusive app Clubhouse launched on the iOS store, its popularity skyrocketed. The app, which is now out of beta, lets users drop into spontaneous audio conversations that, once they are over, are over. With COVID lockdown procedures separating many people around the wor...

Complicated Active Directory setups are undermining security

Security researchers and technical architects from SpecterOps have found that almost every Active Directory installation they have looked at over the last decade has had some kind of misconfiguration issue. And misconfigurations can lead to security issues, such as privilege escalation methods. T...

Russia accused of hacking Dutch police during MH17 investigation

Journalists at the Dutch newspaper "De Volkskrant" have reported that the countrys intelligence service, AIVD, discovered in 2017 that Russian hackers had broken into Dutch police systems. The De Volkskrant report is based on knowledge from anonymous sources. The reason behind this act of espiona...

Colonial Pipeline attack expected to trigger imminent hardening of cybersecurity rules for federal agencies

UPDATE 04:23 pm Pacific Time, May 12: On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed an Executive Order that broadly directs the Commerce Department to create cybersecurity standards for companies that sell software to the federal government. The Order comes in the immediate aftermath of a ransomware...

Password manager hijacked to deliver malware in supply chain attack

In the latest example of a supply chain attack, cybercriminals delivered malware to customers of the business password manager Passwordstate by breaching its developer’s networks and then deploying a fraudulent update last week, said Passwordstate’s maker, Click Studios. Though the number of...