Ransomware review: April 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 didn't pay a ransom. This provides the best overall picture of...

Update now! Apple fixes actively exploited vulnerability and introduces new features

Apple has released security updates for several products. Most notably one of the updates fixes an actively exploited vulnerability in the WebKit component of iOS 15.7.4 and iPadOS 15.7.4 that was fixed earlier in macOS Ventura 13.2.1, iOS 16.3.1, iPadOS 16.3.1, and Safari 16.3. You can find the...

Update now! Apple patches active exploit vulnerability for iPhones

Apple has released new security content for iOS 16.1.2 and Safari 16.2. Normally we would say that Apple pushed out updates, but in this mysterious case the advisory is about an iPhone software update Apple released two weeks ago. As it turns out, to fix a zero-day security vulnerability that was...

SonicWall urges customers to patch critical SQL injection bug ASAP

Cybersecurity hardware company, SonicWall, recently released a public security notice about a critical SQL injection flaw affecting its GMS Global Management System and Analytics On-Prem products. The flaw, which is tracked as CVE-2022-22280, is given a 9.4 critical rating. With the high capabili...

Watch out for the email that says “You have a new voicemail!”

A phishing campaign is using voicemail notification messages to go after victims Office 365 credentials. According to researchers at ZScaler, the campaign uses spoofed emails with an HTML attachment that contains encoded javascript. The email claims that you have a new voicemail and that you can...

Update now! Multiple vulnerabilities patched in Google Chrome

Google has announced an update for the Chrome browser that includes 32 security fixes. The severity rating for one of the patched vulnerabilities is Critical. The stable channel was promoted to 102.0.5005.61/62/63 for Windows, and 102.0.5005.61 for Mac and Linux. Critical Google rates...

Facebook phish claims “Someone tried to log into your account”

Watch out for bogus Facebook phishing messages winging their way to your mailbox. The ruse is quite simple: The mail senders are relying on the recipient’s sense of panic to respond without thinking about it. The mail looks professional enough, and seeks to imitate what would be a fairly typical...

Inside Apple: How macOS attacks are evolving

The start of fall 2021 saw the fourth Objective by the Sea OBTS security conference, which is the only security conference to focus exclusively on Apples ecosystem. As such, it draws many of the top minds in the field. This year, those minds, having been starved of a good security conference for ...

US government and private sector agree to invest time, money in cybersecurity

In the wake of several high-profile ransomware attacks against critical infrastructure and major organizations in the last few months, President Biden met with private sector and education leaders to discuss a whole-of-nation effort needed to address cybersecurity threats and bolster the nation’s...

Amazon will pay you $10 for your palm prints. Should you be worried?

Retail giant Amazon recently offered to pay $10 USD for your palm prints. Would you offer them your hand? Many seem to home in and seethe over the price being too little for something as priceless and unique as their palm print, not realizing that when it does come to registering biometric data i...

Bizarro: a banking Trojan full of nasty tricks

Researchers have discovered a new banking Trojan that has been found targeting customers of European and South American banks. They have dubbed the new Trojan Bizarro. How does Bizarro spread? The Bizarro malware spreads via Microsoft Installer MSI packages. Identified sources so far have been sp...

FBI face recognition trawl finds Capitol rioter via his girlfriend’s Instagram

Facial recognition tech is in the news again after the FBI discovered the identify of one of the Capitol rioters by using facial recognition software on his girlfriends Instagram posts. It may sound scary and invasive, but in truth, what’s happening isn’t particularly new. In this case, we have...

FBI warns of increase in PYSA ransomware attacks targeting education

On March 16, the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI issued a "Flash" alert on PYSA ransomware after an uptick on attacks this month against institutions in the education sector, particularly higher ed, K-12, and seminaries. According to the alert PDF, the United Kingdom and 12 states in the US...

Police credit “unlocked” SKY ECC encryption for organized crime bust

At the moment, I’m really torn, and I need your help. Let me tell you what is going on. I read these statements and they can’t both be true, right? “The continuous monitoring of the illegal Sky ECC communication service tool by investigators in three countries has provided invaluable insights int...

Romance scams: FTC reveals $304 million of heartache

In 2020, reported losses to the FTC for romance scams went up by 50% from 2019, totalling $304 million. And things werent exactly good before: Romance scams have cost people a fortune for 3 years running, according to the FTC. Their latest report suggests a steady rise in these kind of scams...

Retrohunting APT37: North Korean APT used VBA self decode technique to inject RokRat

This post was authored by Hossein Jazi On December 7 2020 we identified a malicious document uploaded to Virus Total which was purporting to be a meeting request likely used to target the government of South Korea. The meeting date mentioned in the document was 23 Jan 2020, which aligns with the...

Credit card skimmer targets virtual conference platform

Weve seen many security incidents affecting different websites simultaneously because they were loading the same tampered piece of code. In many instances, this is due to what we call a supply-chain attack, where a threat actor targets one company that acts as an intermediary to others. In todays...

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...

EncroChat system eavesdropped on by law enforcement

Due to the level of sophistication of the attack, and the malware code, we can no longer guarantee the security of your device. This text caused a lot of aggravation, worries, and sleepless nights. No one wants to hear the security of their device has been compromised by a malware attack. The goo...

Lock and Code S1Ep8: Securely working from home (WFH) with John Donovan and Adam Kujawa

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 John Donovan, head of security at Malwarebytes, and Adam Kujawa, director of Malwarebtyes Labs, about securely working from home WFH. With shelter-in-pla...

Shining a light on “Silent Night” Zloader/Zbot

When it comes to banking Trojans, ZeuS is probably the most famous one ever released. Since its source code originally leaked in 2011, several new variants proliferated online. That includes a past fork called Terdot Zbot/Zloader, which we extensively covered in 2017. But recently, we observed...

When the coronavirus infodemic strikes

Social media sites are stepping up their efforts in the war against misinformation… specifically, the coronavirus/COVID-19 infodemic30461-X/fulltext. There’s a seemingly endless stream of potentially dangerous misinformation flying around online related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and that could ha...

A week in security (April 13 – 19)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we looked at how to avoid Zoom bombing, weighed the risks of surveillance versus pandemics, and dug into a spot of WiFi credential theft. Other cybersecurity news: Malware creeps back into the home: With a pandemic forcing much of the workforce into remote position...

Mysterious database exposed personal information of 80 million US households

Word has broken of yet another massive data trove exposed for anyone to see. A research team from vpnMentor discovered an exposed 24GB database hosted on a Microsoft cloud server containing the addresses, income levels, and marital statuses of users within 80 million US households. As we’ve seen...

Phone spampocalypse: fighting back in the age of unwanted calls

When Nigel Guest, then president of the Council of Neighborhood Associations CNA, sent an email with the subject line, “test,” and the small letter “x” in its message body, the city of Berkeley, CA, went into a frenzy. You see, Mr. Guest thought he sent it only to himself, but he actually posted...

GDPR causes a flood of new policies

The European Union claims that the General Data Protection Regulation GDPR, which comes to term on May 25, is the most important change in data privacy regulation in 20 years. Many companies have spent months preparing for the changes, working on policy and compliance, and introducing changes to...

What is cryptocurrency and why do cybercriminals love it?

Ever pretend you know what your friends are talking about because you want to sound smart and relevant—and then trap yourself in a lie? “Wow, looks like those hackers were mining for cryptocurrency. You know what cryptocurrency is, right?” “Oh yeah, totally. Cryptocurrency. Bad stuff. You know...

Traditional AV solutions shown ineffective in real-time global heat map

It's no secret that antivirus technology AV has faced increased scrutiny in the tech industry for quite some time. With signature-based detection methods, traditional AV solutions are simply weak against unknown malware and other malicious content. Meanwhile, consumers and businesses continue to...

Please don’t buy this: smart locks

We all like buying the latest and greatest tech toy. It’s fun to get new and novel features on a product that used to be boring and predictable; a draw of the original BeBox amongst many was a layer of “das blinkenlights” across the front. But sometimes, the latest feature is not always the...

BYOD, why don’t you?

Bring Your Own Device BYOD is a policy that allows employees to bring their own devices to the workplace and use them there. At one time, this was the latest bonus to attract and keep employees happy—plus save a few bucks. Nowadays the question is more like: Is there anyone who doesn't bring his...

Insider threats in your work inbox

Recently, our friends at Barracuda found a new phishing campaign that banks on the popularity of cloud services used in most businesses, such as Microsoft Office 365. According to their blog post, this latest scheme takes advantage of the natural trust employees place on messages they receive fro...

Locky ransomware returns to the game with two new flavors

We recently observed a fresh malicious spam campaign pushed through the Necurs botnet distributing so far, two new variants of Locky ransomware. In our last Q2 2017 report on tactics and techniques, we mentioned that Locky ransomware had reappeared with a new extension, but went dark again for...

Signal users targeted in backup-stealing phishing attacks

A new phishing campaign is targeting Signal users by attempting to steal their backup recovery keys to access encrypted message archives. The attack is initiated by a text message pretending to come from Signal Support. “Action Required: Data Recovery Needed Your Signal account data message and...

Fake calendar invites are spreading. Here’s how to remove them and prevent more

We’re seeing a surge in phishing calendar invites that users can’t delete, or that keep coming back because they sync across devices. The good news is you can remove them and block future spam by changing a few settings. Most of these unwanted calendar entries are there for phishing purposes. Mos...

Ivanti vulnerabilities now actively exploited in massive numbers

Last week we wrote about two vulnerabilities in all supported versions of Ivanti Connect Secure and Ivanti Policy Secure Gateways that were being actively exploited. The researchers that discovered the active exploitation are warning that these attacks are now very widespread. "Victims are global...

Atomic Stealer rings in the new year with updated version

Last year, we documented malware distribution campaigns both via malvertising and compromised sites delivering Atomic Stealer AMOS onto Mac users. This stealer has proven to be quite popular in the criminal underground and its developers have been adding new features to justify its hefty...

Update vCenter Server now! VMWare fixes critical vulnerability

VMWare has issued an update to address one out-of-bounds write and one information disclosure vulnerability in its server management software, vCenter Server. Since there are no in-product workarounds, customers are advised to apply the updates urgently. The affected products are VMware vCenter...

Two Apple issues added by CISA to its catalog of known exploited vulnerabilities

The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency CISA has added two new vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog, based on evidence of active exploitation. This means that Federal Civilian Executive Branch FCEB agencies need to remediate this vulnerability by October 2, 20...

Windows 11 pulls ahead of Windows 10 in anti-phishing stakes

Some new security additions and changes have been announced for users of Windows, but youll have to be using Windows 11 to get the most out of them. Windows 10 users may find that this is going to be a case of falling behind the herd ever so slightly. Anti-phishing tools Enhanced phishing...

Playing Doom on a John Deere tractor with Sick Codes: Lock and Code S03E18

In 1993, the video game developers at id Software released Doom, a first-person shooter that placed a nameless protagonist into the fiery depths of hell, equipped with an arsenal of weapons to mow down imps, demons, lost souls, and the intimidating "Barons of Hell." In 2022, the hacker Sick Codes...

Researchers found one-click exploits in Discord and Teams

A group of security researchers have discovered a series of vulnerabilities in Electron, the software underlying popular apps like Discord, Microsoft Teams, and many others, used by tens of millions of people all over the world. Electron is a framework that allows developers to create desktop...

Mac users, update now! “Powerdir” flaw could allow attackers to spy on you

If you have been forgoing updating your Mac, this article might make you think twice. The Microsoft 365 Defender Research Team has discovered a vulnerability in macOS, which allows malicious apps to successfully bypass a users privacy preferences. This means attackers could access personal data...

Millions of GoDaddy customer data compromised in breach

Domain name registrar giant and hosting provider GoDaddy yesterday disclosed to the Securities and Exchange Commission SEC that it had suffered a security breach. In the notice, it explained it had been compromised via an "unauthorized third-party access to our Managed WordPress hosting...

WhatsApp hit with €225 million fine for GDPR violations

WhatsApp was hit with a €225 million fine for violating the General Data Protection Regulation GDPR, the European Union’s sweeping data protection law that has been in effect for more than three years. The fine represents the highest ever penalty levied by the Irish Data Protection Commission,...

Vulnerable WordPress plugin leaves online shoppers vulnerable

The most popular web content management system CMS is WordPress, which is used by more than 30% of all websites. By extension, the most popular ecommerce platform in the world is WooCommerce, a plugin that turns a WordPress website into an online shop. In fact, WooCommerce is so popular that it...

A week in security (August 9 – August 15)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Home routers are being hijacked using a vulnerability disclosed just 2 before Ransomware turncoat leaks Conti data, lifts the lid on the ransomware business Check your passwords! Synology NAS devices are under attack from StealthWorker PrintNightmare and RDP RCE...

MITRE introduces D3FEND framework

The US National Security Agency NSA has announced it will fund the development of a knowledge base of defensive countermeasures for the most common techniques used by malicious threat actors. The project will be made available through MITRE and will be called D3FEND as it complements MITRE’s...

Clop stopped? Ransomware gang loses Tesla and other treasures in police raid

Ukrainian law enforcement officials announced Wednesday that they had arrested several individuals involved in criminal activity committed by the Clop ransomware gang, a cybercriminal gang that helped popularize the “double extortion” model of not only threatening to encrypt a victim’s files, but...

“Have I been pwnd?”– What is it and what to do when you *are* pwned

Adobe. Yahoo!. The US Department of Energy DoE. The New York Times. What these names have in common is that they have all experienced at least one breach in 2013—the year when threat actors started targeting organizations across industries to either steal data for profit or leak them to "teach...

When contractors attack: two years in jail for vengeful IT admin

An IT contractor working for an IT consultancy company took it upon himself to perform an act of revenge against the firm he worked at, after they complained about his performance. The charge he faced was breaking into the network of a company in Carlsbad, California. And it got him two years in...