Of scammers and cute puppies

We’ve followed tech support scammers for quite a while at Malwarebytes. They’ve been of particular interest because of their preference for scamming the poor, the elderly, and the developmentally disabled. But there’s a diverse spectrum of online scams a criminal can profit from, and today we’re...

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...

A week in security (June 17 – June 23)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Microsoft Recall delayed after privacy and security concerns Almost everything you always wanted to know about cybersecurity, but were too afraid to ask, with Tjitske de Vries: Lock and Code S05E13 43% of couples experience pressure to share logins and locations,...

Criminal record database of millions of Americans dumped online

A cybercriminal going by the names of EquationCorp and USDoD has released an enormous database containing the criminal records of millions of Americans. The database is said to contain 70 million rows of data. Post by USDoD on a breach forum The leaked database is said to include full names, date...

Introducing the Digital Footprint Portal

Digital security is about so much more than malware. That wasn’t always the case. When I started Malwarebytes more than 16 years ago, malware was the primary security concern—the annoying pop-ups, the fast-spreading viruses, the catastrophic worms—and throughout our company’s history, Malwarebyte...

19 million plaintext passwords exposed by incorrectly configured Firebase instances

Three researchers scanned the internet for vulnerable Firebase instances, looking for personally identifiable information PII. Firebase is a platform for hosting databases, cloud computing, and app development. Its owned by Google and was set up to help developers build and ship apps. What the...

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...

Decline in robocalls is encouraging, efforts seem to be working

The Federal Communications Commission FCC has announced that its recent actions with the Federal Trade Commission FTC against international robocalls appear to have had an effect. Robocalls are automated phone calls, often associated with scams and unwanted solicitations, which can be a nuisance ...

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...

SEC X account hacked to hawk crypto-scams

We have seen several high-profile accounts that were taken over on X formerly Twitter only to be used for cryptocurrency related promotional activities, like expressing the approval of exchange-traded funds ETFs. The latest victim in this line-up is the Securities and Exchange Commission SEC. The...

Warning issued over increased activity of TrueBot malware

In a joint advisory, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI, the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center MS-ISAC, and the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security CCCS have warned about newly identified TrueBot malware variants use...

Chip company loses $250m after ransomware hits supply chain

Applied Materials, one of the worlds leading suppliers of equipment, services, and software for the manufacture of semiconductors, has warned that its second-quarter sales are likely to be hurt to the tune of $250 million due to a cybersecurity attack at one of its suppliers. MKS Instruments Inc...

Multiple schools hit by Vice Society ransomware attack

The real world impact of cybercrime rears its head once more, with word that 14 schools in the UK have been caught out by ransomware. The schools, attacked by the group known as Vice Society, have had multiple documents leaked online in the wake of the attack. One of the primary schools...

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...

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 ...

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,...

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...

A doctor reveals the human cost of the HSE ransomware attack

"It’s cracking, the whole thing." The words were delivered quickly, but in a thoughtful and measured way. As if the person saying them was used to delivering difficult news. Little surprise, given they belonged to a doctor. But this doctor wasnt describing a medical condition—this was their...

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...

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...

Ransomware is targeting vulnerable Microsoft Exchange servers

The Microsoft Exchange attacks using the ProxyLogon vulnerability, and previously associated with the dropping of malicious web shells, are taking on a ransomware twist. Until now, the name of the game has been compromise and data exfiltration, with a bit of cryptomining on the side. To summarise...

Chrome wants to make your passwords stronger

A common sentiment, shared by many people down the years, is that storing passwords in browsers is a bad idea. Malware, for example, would specifically target password storage in browsers and plunder everything in sight. Password managers weren’t exactly flying off the shelves back in 2007, your...

SMB cybersecurity posture weakened by COVID-19, Labs report finds

In August, Malwarebytes Labs analyzed the damage caused by COVID-19 to business cybersecurity. Because of immediate, mandated transitions to working from home WFH, businesses across the United States suffered more data breaches, lost more dollars, and increased their overall attack surfaces, all...

Threat spotlight: WastedLocker, customized ransomware

WastedLocker is a new ransomware operated by a malware exploitation gang commonly known as the Evil Corp gang. The same gang that is associated with Dridex and BitPaymer. The attribution is not based on the malware variants as WastedLocker is very different from BitPaymer. What was kept was the...

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...

Windows 7 is EOL: What next?

End-of-life EOL is an expression commonly used by software vendors to indicate that a product or version of a product has reached the end of usefulness in the eyes of the vendor. Many companies, including Microsoft, announce the EOL dates for their products far in advance. Every Windows product h...

Android Trojan xHelper uses persistent re-infection tactics: here’s how to remove

We first stumbled upon the nasty Android Trojan xHelper, a stealthy malware dropper, in May 2019. By mid-summer 2019, xHelper was topping our detection charts—so we wrote an article about it. After the blog, we thought the case was closed on xHelper. Then a tech savvy user reached out to us in...

Tampa Bay Times hit with Ryuk ransomware attack

Florida newspaper The Tampa Bay Times suffered a Ryuk ransomware attack Thursday, making it the latest major victim of the notorious ransomware family that continues to rise in popularity. Curiously, the paper is at least the third Florida-based Ryuk victim in the past year. The attack, which The...

A decade in cybersecurity fails: the top breaches, threats, and ‘whoopsies’ of the 2010s

This post was co-authored by Wendy Zamora and Chris Boyd. All opinions expressed belong to your mom. Back in the days before climate change stretched frigid winter months directly into the insta-sweat of summer, there was a saying about March: in like a lamb, out like a lion. The same might be sa...

For Cybersecurity and Domestic Violence Awareness months, we pledge to fight stalkerware

Starting today, two hallmark holidays are upon us. No, it’s not Halloween and Thanksgiving. It’s both Cybersecurity Awareness Month and Domestic Violence Awareness Month. It’s no coincidence these two awareness campaigns overlap. What were once seen as separate realities—the physical and the...

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...

Search engine shenanigans: Malwarebytes mentions aren’t what they seem

Thing might be a touch quiet at the moment as we ease into 2018, but that doesn't mean dubious antics and dodgy dealings aren't still making waves online. As a matter of fact, should you go searching for some of our researchers, their blog posts, or just a couple of notable quotables from news...

A week in security (September 25 – October 01)

Recently, we talked about the hacking incident at Deloitte, one of the 'big four' global accounting firms. It was reported that client email addresses, usernames, and passwords were exposed. This also brought to light weaknesses in their policies and lack of threat intelligence to recover leaked...

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...

Terror EK actor experiments with URL shortener fraud

Terror EK is an exploit kit made from a mishmash of stolen code and with very limited distribution. In the past few months, we have seen a few minor updates to its code base which remains largely simplistic in comparison to professional-grade exploit kits of the past such as Angler EK, or...

Update your Mac: Screen Sharing vulnerability exploited in the wild

The Dutch National Cyber Security Centre NCSC issued a warning after being notified of several incidents where a vulnerability in Apple’s Screen Sharing feature was exploited to install Monero cryptominers. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-65400, was patched by Apple on August 6. It is an...

Healthcare giant Abbott probes two cyber incidents amid extortion claims

Abbott Laboratories, one of the world's largest healthcare and medical device companies, is investigating two apparently unrelated cyber incidents after confirming unauthorized access to internal systems. While Abbott says there has been no impact on manufacturing, laboratory operations, or patie...

Keep getting calls from questionable numbers? Meet Scam Number Check

Have you ever gotten a phone call and had a gut feeling that those random digits looked extra suspicious? It happens to millions of people every day. While many people have trained themselves to ignore such calls, they still pose a threat across the US. In fact, scammers stole more than $21 billi...

Fake CleanMyMac site installs SHub Stealer and backdoors crypto wallets

A convincing fake version of the popular Mac utility CleanMyMac is tricking users into installing malware. The site instructs visitors to paste a command into Terminal. If they do, it installs SHub Stealer, macOS malware designed to steal sensitive data including saved passwords, browser data,...

Inside a fake Google security check that becomes a browser RAT

A website styled to resemble a Google Account security page is distributing what may be one of the most fully featured browser-based surveillance toolkits we have observed in the wild. Disguised as a routine security checkup, it walks victims through a four-step flow that grants the attacker push...

Booking.com phish uses fake CAPTCHAs to trick hotel staff into downloading malware

A new phishing campaign that uses the fake CAPTCHA websites we reported about recently is targeting hotel staff in a likely attempt to access customer data, according to research from ThreatDown. Here's how it works: Cybercriminals send a fake Booking.com email to a hotel’s email address, asking...

Big name TikTok accounts hijacked after opening DM

High profile TikTok accounts, including CNN, Sony, and—er­—Paris Hilton have been targeted in a recent attack. CNN was the first account takeover that made the news, with Semafor reporting that the account was down for several days after the incident. According to Forbes, the attack happens witho...

How to back up your Windows 10/11 PC to OneDrive

They say the only backup you ever regret is the one you didnt make. Starting in Windows 10, the operating system OS now comes with a built-in tool to back up your files, themes, some settings, many of your installed apps, and your Wi-Fi information. First, you’ll need to sign in with your Microso...

Deepfake Taylor Swift images circulate online, politicians call for laws to ban deepfake creation

Deepfake images of Taylor Swift have really made some serious waves. Explicit images of the popstar, generated by Artificial Intelligence AI were posted on social media and Telegram. The images were viewed millions of times. The impact of the deepfake was enormous. Social media platform X formerl...

ThreatDown earns highest ratings across EDR and MDR categories in G2 Winter 2024 results

The peer-to-peer review source G2 has released its Winter 2024 reports, ranking ThreatDown products on top across several Endpoint Detection and Response EDR and Managed Detection and Response MDR categories. Based on verified customer reviews, ThreatDown EDR was voted a Leader in the overall and...

Explained: SMTP smuggling

SMTP smuggling is a technique that allows an attacker to send an email from pretty much any address they like. The intended goal is email spoofing—sending emails with false sender addresses. Email spoofing allows criminals to make malicious emails more believable. Let’s take a closer look at what...

Malvertising via Dynamic Search Ads delivers malware bonanza

Most, if not all malvertising incidents result from a threat actor either injecting code within an existing ad, or intentionally creating one. Today, we look at a different scenario where, as strange as that may sound, malvertising was entirely accidental. The reason this happened was due to the...

Update now! Google Chrome's first weekly update has arrived

Google has published details about the first weekly update for the Chrome browser. Recently Google announced that it would start shipping weekly security updates for the Stable channel the version most of us use. Regular Chrome releases will still come every four weeks, but to get security fixes...

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...

A week in security (June 27 – July 3)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Ransomware review: June 2022 AstraLocker 2.0 ransomware isn’t going to give you your files back YTStealer targets YouTube content creators ZuoRAT is a sophisticated malware that mainly targets SOHO routers Amazon Photos vulnerability could have given attackers acce...