Meta to abandon social media tracking tool CrowdTangle

On 14 March, Meta announced it would abandon CrowdTangle, saying the tool will no longer be available after August 14, 2024. While most people have never heard of CrowdTangle, among journalists the tool is considered essential. Its popularity largely depends on the ability to monitor social media...

Facebook fatal accident scam still rages on

Recently I wrote about a malvertising campaign on Facebook that has been going on for almost a year. Apparently Facebook is struggling to stop this campaign, so now this type of campaign is showing up in other languages than English. I have seen two different types in German. First Facebook scam...

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...

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...

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...

The mystery of the CVEs that are not vulnerabilities

A researcher specializing in Software Supply Chain security named Dan Lorenc recently raised an interesting topic on LinkedIn. 138 new vulnerabilities in open-source projects were all entered the same day to the CVE database. To understand what the problem is there are a few things youll need to...

Adware found on Google Play — PDF Reader serving up full screen ads

A PDF reader found on Google Play with over one million downloads is aggressively displaying full screen ads, even when the app is not in use. More specifically, the reader is known as PDF reader - documents viewer, package name com.document.pdf.viewer. As a result, this aggressive behavior lands...

Infamous dark net carding site UniCC to close

UniCC, the largest site on the dark web that sells credit card and debit card information, will close up shop for good, taking its affiliate site, LuxSocks, with it, too. According to Elliptic, a company that offers risk solutions for cryptoassets, the unknown UniCC administrators have made an...

A week in security (Nov 29 – Dec 5)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: CronRAT targets Linux servers with e-commerce attacks Hackers all over the world are targeting Tasmania’s emergency services Massive faceprint scraping company Clearview AI hauled over the coals Most people aren’t upgrading to Windows 11: Not the end of the world...

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...

Nope, that isn’t Elon Musk, and he isn’t offering a free Topmist Dust watch either

Elon Musk is an incredibly popular target for scammers and spammers on social media. Attach his name to something he has no involvement in and watch it fly. Verified accounts on Twitter continue to be favourites for account compromise / fake Elon scams. Those often turn out to be Bitcoin related...

A week in security (May 3 – 9)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we discussed how Spectre attacks have come back from the dead; why Facebook banned Instragram ads by Signal; we highlighted the differences between the most popular VPN protocols; pointed out that Google is about to start automatically enrolling users in two-step...

Zoom deepfaker fools politicians…twice

We recently said deepfakes “remain the weapon of choice for malign interference campaigns, troll farms, revenge porn, and occasionally humorous celebrity face-swaps”. Skepticism that these techniques would work on a grand scale such as an election, remains in place. In the realm of malign...

Fake Trezor app steals more than $1 million worth of crypto coins

Several users of Trezor, a small hardware device that acts as a cryptocurrency wallet, have been duped by a fake app with the same name. The app was available on Google Play and Apple’s App Store and also claimed to be from SatoshiLabs, the creators of Trezor. According to the Washington Post, th...

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...

Perkiler malware turns to SMB brute force to spread

Researchers at Guardicore have identified a new infection vector being used by the Perkiler malware where internet-facing Windows machines are breached through SMB password brute force. Perkiler is a complex Windows malware with rootkit components that is dropped by the Purple Fox exploit kit EK...

Introducing Malwarebytes Privacy

Here at Malwarebytes, we’re no strangers to using virtual private networks VPNs to protect our privacy while browsing online. Regular readers of our blog will remember that we’ve advised on VPN usage on many occasions, whether for mobile device users looking for anonymity or business owners wanti...

New Consumer Online Privacy Rights Act (COPRA) would empower American users

Despite the already dizzying number of comprehensive data privacy proposals before the US Senate—nearly 10 have been introduced since mid-2018—yet another bill has entered the conversation: the Consumer Online Privacy Rights Act. This time, the bill, called COPRA for short, is sponsored by a...

The little-known ways mobile device sensors can be exploited by cybercriminals

The bevy of mobile device sensors in modern smartphones and tablets make them more akin to pocket-sized laboratories and media studios than mere communication devices. Cameras, microphones, accelerometers, and gyroscopes give incredible flexibility to app developers and utility to mobile device...

A week in security (July 29 – August 4)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs we discussed the security and privacy changes in Android Q, how to get your Equifax money and stay safe doing it, and we looked at the strategy of getting a board of directors to invest in government cybersecurity. We also reviewed how a Capital One breach exposed...

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...

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...

New ‘Under the Radar’ report examines modern threats and future technologies

As if you haven't heard it enough from us, the threat landscape is changing. It's always changing, and usually not for the better. The new malware we see being developed and deployed in the wild have features and techniques that allow them to go beyond what they were originally able to do, either...

Reversing malware in a custom format: Hidden Bee elements

Malware can be made of many components. Often, we encounter macros and scripts that work as malicious downloaders. Some functionalities can also be achieved by position-independent code—so-called shellcode. But when it comes to more complex elements or core modules, we almost take it for granted...

We block shady ad blockers

Some of you have reached out to us concerning Malwarebytes blocking of certain ad blocking extensions, or an influx in web blocking notifications. First things first, this is not a false positive. Recently in their blog, AdGuard has discovered that numerous malicious ad blocking extensions were...

Presenting: Malwarebytes Labs 2017 State of Malware Report

2017 was a tumultuous year in politics, media, gender, race—and cybersecurity didn’t beat the rap. Last year was full of twists and turns in the cybercrime world, with major outbreaks, new infection methods, and the evolution of the cryptocurrency crime industry. In aiming to make sense of the...

A week in security (January 8 – January 14)

It's very early in the year, yet everyone has already had a complete meltdown pun intended over a number of serious vulnerabilities found in legacy and modern microprocessors. Last week, rightly so, vendors released patches for hardware and OSes to help mitigate these threats. However, problems i...

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...

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...

TikTok, YouTube, and Roblox face scrutiny, but age gates won’t fix child safety

A damaging new report from Ofcom, the UK's communications regulator, has delivered a stark verdict: TikTok and YouTube's content feeds are "not safe enough" for children. This isn't just another regulatory slap on the wrist. Ofcom is putting out a wake-up call for anyone working in cybersecurity,...

This Android vulnerability can break your lock screen in under 60 seconds

A vulnerability in Android devices can allow attackers to gain access to a phone in less than a minute. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-20435, affects certain MediaTek SoCs System-on-a-Chip using Trustonic’s TEE Trusted Execution Environment. That may sound rare, but reportedly that’s abou...

SMS scammers use toll fees as a lure

In April 2024, the FBI warned about a new type of smishing scam. Smishing is the term we use for phishing attacks sent via text message. This particular smishing scam tries to trick users into clicking a link by telling them they owe a “small amount” in toll fees. The scammers send a text claimin...

A week in security (July 8 – July 14)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: "Nearly all" AT&T customers had phone records stolen in new data breach disclosure Fake Microsoft Teams for Mac delivers Atomic Stealer Dangerous monitoring tool mSpy suffers data breach, exposes customer details iPhone users in 98 countries warned about spyware by...

How to turn off location tracking on iOS and iPadOS

On iOS and iPadOS, location services are typically turned on when you first set up your device. However, there may be reasons why you don’t want your device to be located, perhaps because you don’t want to be found but need to keep the device with you. There are a few options to hide your locatio...

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...

Malwarebytes Browser Guard introduces three new features

Malwarebytes Browser Guard is our free browser extension for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari that blocks unwanted and unsafe content, giving users a safer and faster browsing experience. It's the worlds first browser extension to do this while also identifying and stopping tech support scams. A...

Solar monitoring systems exposed: Secure your devices

Researchers who go looking for devices exposed to the Internet report "tens of thousands" of solar photovoltaic PV monitoring and diagnostic systems can be found on the web. The systems are used for everything from system optimization to performance monitoring and troubleshooting. No fewer than...

A Chrome fix for an in-the-wild exploit is out—Check your version

Google has announced an update for Chrome that fixes an in-the-wild exploit. Chrome Stable channel has been updated to 107.0.5304.87 for Mac and Linux, and 107.0.5304.87/.88 for Windows. The vulnerability at hand is described as a type confusion issue in the V8 Javascript engine. Mitigation If...

Hundreds of Microsoft SQL servers found to be backdoored

Researchers at DCSO CyTec recently found a backdoor that specifically targets Microsoft SQL servers. The malware acts as an Extended Stored Procedure, which is a special type of extension used by Microsoft SQL servers. After scanning approximately 600,000 servers worldwide, they found 285 servers...

Ransomware: April 2022 review

The Malwarebytes Threat Intelligence team monitors the threat landscape continuously and produces monthly ransomware reports based on a mixture of proprietary and open-source intelligence. April 2022 was most notable for the emergence of three new ransomware-as-a-service RaaS groups—Onyx, Mindwar...

Google’s Threat Horizons report: Will the straightforward approach get results?

Google’s Cybersecurity Action Team has released a Threat Horizons report focusing on cloud security. It’s taken some criticism for being surprisingly straightforward and less complex than you may expect. On the other hand, many businesses simply don’t understand many of the threats at large...

Judge drops hammer, dishes 7 years slammer for BEC and romance scammer

A Texas resident has finally paid the price for a heady mix of malicious mail antics. A combination of business email compromise BEC scams and romance fakeouts bagged them $2.2 million across roughly 6 years. This is quite a divergent portfolio of scamming activity. You may typically assume BEC...

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...

SearchDimension search hijackers: An overview of developments

Background information on SearchDimension SearchDimension is the name of a family of browser hijackers that makes money from ad clicks and search engine revenues. The family was named after the domain searchdimension.com that popped up in 2017, and they still sometimes use the letter combo SD in...

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...

A week in security (September 28 – October 4)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we dug into what happens when card fraud comes calling, we gave a rundown on some novel ransomware attacks that took advantage of smart coffee makers, and we introduced VideoBytes, our new, monthly series in which well provide video coverage of some of the...

Dutch ISP Ziggo demonstrates how not to inform your customers about a security flaw

“Can you have a look at this email I got, please?" my brother asked. “It looks convincing enough, but I don’t trust it,” he added and forwarded me the email he received from Ziggo, his Internet Service Provider ISP. Shortly after, he informed me that despite its suspicious aura, he found...

Explained: cloud-delivered security

As a counterpart to security for your assets in the cloud, you may also run into solutions that offer security from the cloud. These solutions are generally referred to as cloud-delivered security. Cloud-delivered security is sometimes called security-as-a-service which we will avoid here as it...

Spelevo exploit kit debuts new social engineering trick

2019 has been a busy year for exploit kits, despite the fact that they haven't been considered a potent threat vector for years, especially on the consumer side. This time, we discovered the Spelevo exploit kit with its virtual pants down, attempting to capitalize on the popularity of adult...

Malwarebytes teams up with security vendors and advocacy groups to launch Coalition Against Stalkerware

Today, Malwarebytes is announcing its participation in a joint effort to stop invasive digital surveillance: the Coalition Against Stalkerware. For years, Malwarebytes has detected and warned users about the potentially dangerous capabilities of stalkerware, an invasive threat that can rob...