Malwarebytes CrackMe 2: contest summary

About three weeks ago, we published our second CrackMe. It triggered a lot of interest, and we got many high-quality write-ups. Choosing the winner was really difficult! In this post, I am going to summarize the contest and comment on the received submissions. CrackMe 2 challenge The topic of the...

LockCrypt ransomware: weakness in code can lead to recovery

At the start of the year, it seemed that 2018 was going to be all about cryptominers. They so overwhelmingly dominated the landscape that it looked like no other threat had a chance. However, ransomware is not giving up the field so fast. There have been new variants popping up every couple of...

“Celebrating Stephen Hawking” with a 419 scam

The recently departed Stephen Hawking is apparently back from the dead, now a target for scammers wanting to extract some quick cash from the unwary in the form of a vaguely surreal 419 scam. The whole thing begins with an email from, er, Stephen Hawking titled "Celebrating Stephen Hawking." Clic...

Augmented Reality games and real-world trolling

Augmented Reality games—where you wave a device around and the digital collides with reality— have been booming in popularity ever since Pokemon GO! rolled into mobile storefronts. However, many AR games haven't really been designed with the possible consequences of real-world safety in mind. Tak...

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...

Learning PowerShell: The basics

I bet I went about learning PowerShell the wrong way, so I may need your help, readers of this blog. If only to organize my knowledge and use it for the fight against malware and not just to figure out how it was used in malware. The first serious look I had at PowerShell was when I was trying to...

Tor Browser and Firefox users should update to fix actively exploited vulnerability

Mozilla has announced a security fix for its Firefox browser which also impacts the closely related Tor Browser. The new version fixes one critical security vulnerability which is reportedly under active exploitation. To address the flaw, both Mozilla and Tor recommend that users update their...

Update now! Google Pixel vulnerability is under active exploitation

Google has notified Pixel users about an actively exploited vulnerability in their phones firmware. Firmware is the code or program which is embedded into hardware devices. Simply put, it is the software layer between the hardware and the applications on the device. About the vulnerability, Googl...

ThreatDown achieves perfect score in latest AVLab assessment

ThreatDown has once again earned a perfect score in AVLabs January 2024 real-world malware detection tests, marking the eleventh consecutive quarter in achieving this feat. Let’s delve into the details of the test and how ThreatDown outperformed competitors in exhaustive testing. The AVLab...

Update now! JetBrains TeamCity vulnerability abused at scale

JetBrains issued a warning on March 4, 2024 about two serious vulnerabilities in TeamCity server. The flaws can be used by a remote, unauthenticated attacker with HTTPS access to a TeamCity on-premises server to bypass authentication checks and gain administrative control of the TeamCity server...

Update Chrome now! Google patches another actively exploited vulnerability

Google has updated the Stable Channel for Chrome to 117.0.5938.132 for Windows, Mac and Linux. This update includes ten security fixes. According to Google there is an active exploit for one of the patched vulnerabilities, which means cybercriminals are aware of the vulnerability and are using it...

FBI confirms Barracuda patch is not effective for exploited ESG appliances

In an FBI Flash about a Barracuda ESG vulnerability, listed as CVE-2023-2868, the FBI has stated that the patches released by Barracuda in response to this CVE were ineffective for anyone previously infected. Although both Barracude and Mandiant have already made this determination, the agency sa...

3 tips to raise your backup game

If there was an award for "most overlooked really important thing in computing", backups would win. Every year. So let's put that right and spend a minute or two thinking about backups. Backups are great! Having backups is like having a do-over for your mistakes, and who hasn't wished for that? A...

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...

Education hammered by exploits and backdoors in 2021 and 2022

In May of 2021, education underwent a siege of exploit attempts using the vulnerability CVE-2021-21551, which exploits a Dell system driver bug and helps attackers to gain access to a network. Considering that many schools across the United States use Dell hardware, its understandable to see such...

Update Chrome now: Four high risk vulnerabilities found

Users of Chrome have been advised to apply updates as soon as possible related to seven security vulnerabilities. CISA has also warned that the vulnerabilities could be used to take control of affected systems. Although no detailed explanation of how these vulnerabilities work has been released,...

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...

Xenomorph banking Trojan downloaded over 50,000 times from Play Store

Besides the name of the creature that “stars” in the Alien movies by 20th Century Fox, Xenomorph is also the name given to an Android banking Trojan. Researchers found this banking Trojan to be distributed on the official Google Play Store, with more than 50,000 installations. The researchers...

A week in security (January 24 – 30)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: QNAP update stops Deadbolt ransomware, annoys some users, starts debate Big Mother is watching: What parents REALLY think about tracking their kids Update now! Apple patches another actively used zero-day Let’s Encrypt to revoke “mis-issued” certificates North...

Cyberbullying 101: A Primer for kids, teens, and parents

At some point in our lives, we have likely either been bullied, stood back and watched others bullying, or participated in the act. Playing the role of offender, offended, and by-stander has become easier, thanks to the Internet and the technologies that make it possible to keep up connected. In...

Kaseya update delayed for security reasons

Software vendor Kaseya has been caught in the chaos of a supply-chain compromise by the REvil ransomware gang since Friday. Around 40 managed service providers MSPs that rely on Kaseya VSA software to administer customers IT—and up to 1,500 of their customers—have been stricken with the ransomwar...

Cybercrime, fraud, and insider threats increased in 2020 in the UK, report says

Since the initial lockdown, we have seen the rise of certain types of cybercrime, including scams and fraud campaigns that either bank on the global COVID-19 pandemic or take advantage of potential victims that adhere to work-from-home measures. In the UK, the National Crime Agency NCA has...

A week in security (April 26 – May 2)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we looked at which age range is most likely to be targeted by online predators, talked to Malwarebytes CISO John Donovan on our Lock and Code podcast, and explored the latest deepfake happenings. We also dug into a supply chain attack, discussed threats from a...

Bitcoin scammers phish for wallet recovery codes on Twitter

Were no strangers to the Twitter customer support DM slide scam. This is where someone watches an organisation perform customer support on Twitter, and injects themselves into the conversation at opportune moments hoping potential victims don’t notice. This is aided by imitation accounts modelled...

Malwarebytes releases SMB Cybersecurity Trust & Confidence Report 2021

What can we say about 2020 that hasn’t already been said? Beliefs were shaken. Values were questioned. Truths were tested. Then COVID happened and things really got crazy. The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic on March 12, 2020. That same day...

Omegle investigation raises new concerns for kids’ safety

Social media site Omegle is under fire after an investigation found boys using the platform to expose themselves on camera, and adults exposing themselves to minors. Omegle users are paired with a random stranger who they can socialize with via text or video chat. An investigation by the British...

VideoBytes: Offensive security tools and the bad guys that use them

Hello Folks! In this Videobyte, we’re talking about what penetration testing tools malware gangs love to use and why they are better than what you can get on the black market. This article describes the VirusBulletin talk of a security researcher from Interzer Labs, Paul Litvak, in which he...

Labs report finds cyberthreats against healthcare increasing while security circles the drain

The team at Malwarebytes Labs is at it again, this time with a special edition of our quarterly CTNT report—Cybercrime tactics and techniques: the 2019 state of healthcare. Over the last year, we gathered global data from our product telemetry, honeypots, threat intelligence, and research efforts...

Here are the most popular robocall scams and how to avoid them

We recently examined how robocall scams are a serious threat to privacy, alongside the astonishing rate at which their volume continues to increase. Forty-three billion calls in 2019 with an average of 131 calls per person in the US alone is not something to be sniffed at. No matter how careful y...

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:...

Malwarebytes helps take down massive ad fraud botnets

On November 27, the US Department of Justice announced the indictment of eight individuals involved in a major ad fraud case that cost digital advertisers millions of dollars. The operation, dubbed 3ve, was the combination of the Boaxxe and Kovter botnets, which the FBI—in collaboration with...

How to secure your content management system

Suppose you want to start your own blog or set up a website where you can easily manage its content, the way it looks, and how often it changes. What you need is a content management system CMS. WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla are some of the most popular content management systems used by both...

Red Hen website suffers SEO spam compromise

If you're thinking about checking out the website owned by the restaurant that asked White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave the premises, you might want to hold off. There's some site compromise action afoot. Although the homepage appears to be acting in a perfectly normal...

Two major Canadian banks blackmailed after alleged data breach

While the US was celebrating Memorial Day on Monday, Canada was dealing with an unusual data breach affecting two popular financial institutions: Simplii Financial and Bank of Montreal BMO. The CBC broke the story and updated it throughout the day to mention that some 90,000 customers were possib...

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 ...

A week in security (March 26 – April 01)

Last week, we looked at the thought process behind creating a ransomware decryptor, the inner workings of QuantLoader, the ways one can protect their Android devices, the exploit kits we have encountered this winter, the now-known epidemic of data breaches, the coming of TLS 1.3, and the ways one...

Drive-by mining and ads: The Wild Wild West

There seems to be a trend lately for publishers to monetize their traffic by having their visitors mine for cryptocurrencies while on their site. The idea is that you are accessing content for free and in exchange, your computer its CPU in particular will be used for mining purposes. The Pirate B...

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...

Mobile Menace Monday: Malicious clicker with extra maliciousness included

A new malicious clicker has emerged onto third-party app stores. Chinese in origin, the malicious app uses heavy obfuscation and poses as a battery optimizer app. We classify is as Android/Trojan.Clicker.hyj. Click to view slideshow. Hide what’s inside To obfuscate its code, Clicker.hyj uses an A...

Adware the series, the final: Tools section

So far in this series, we have handed you some methods to recognize and remediate adware. We used this diagram as a guideline. During this journey, we have touched upon several free tools that we used to get some insight on what type of infection we were dealing with and where the adware could be...

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 ...

Deepfake sextortion forces schools to remove student photos from websites

Schools love a good photo, whether it's from a trip to a castle, a science prize ceremony, or sports day shot from three angles. For two decades, celebratory images like these have gone straight onto school websites, captioned with a name and a grade. But those days are gone, because it's the...

A first analysis of the i-Soon data leak

Data from a Chinese cybersecurity vendor that works for the Chinese government has exposed a range of hacking tools and services. Although the source is not entirely clear, it seems that a disgruntled staff member of the group leaked the information on purpose. The vendor, i-Soon aka Anxun is...

Update Chrome! Google patches actively exploited zero-day vulnerability

Google has released an update for Chrome which includes four security fixes, including one for a vulnerability that has reportedly already been exploited. The easiest way to update Chrome is to allow it to update automatically, which basically uses the same method as outlined below but does not...

Ransomware review: December 2023

This article is based on research by Marcelo Rivero, Malwarebytes ransomware specialist, who monitors information published by ransomware gangs on their Dark Web sites. In this report, "known attacks" are those where the victim did not pay a ransom. This provides the best overall picture of...

Cisco IOS XE vulnerability widely exploited in the wild

An authentication bypass affecting Cisco IOS X was disclosed on October 16, 2023. Researchers have found since then that the vulnerability is widely being exploited in the wild to help install implants on affected switches and routers. Cisco IOS XE is a universally deployed Internetworking...

Update now! Apple patches vulnerabilities on iPhone and iPad

Apple has released iOS 17.0.3, an emergency update fixing two vulnerabilities, one of which has already been exploited by cybercriminals. The update is available for 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, iP...

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...

DNA testing company failed to protect sensitive genetic and health data, says FTC

DNA testing has long been a hot-button issue for security and privacy. Concerns about everything from law enforcement and data retention to job offers and insurance have all been examined at great length. With millions of people signing up to use these services, it was only a matter of time befor...