Say hello to the fifth generation of Malwarebytes

Announcing the latest version of Malwarebytes, which brings a faster, responsive, and consistent user interface, integrated security and privacy, and expert guidance to keep you secure. Heres what you can expect: 1. Unified user experience across platforms The new generation of Malwarebytes now...

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...

No “Apple magic” as 11% of macOS detections last year came from malware

We’re going to let you in on a little cybersecurity secret… There’s malware on Mac computers. There pretty much always has been. As revealed in our 2024 ThreatDown State of Malware report, a full 11% of all detections recorded by Malwarebytes on Mac computers in 2023 were for different variants o...

Info-stealers can steal cookies for permanent access to your Google account

Hackers have found a way to gain unauthorized access to Google accounts, bypassing any multi-factor authentication MFA the user may have set up. To do this they steal authentication cookies and then extend their lifespan. It doesn’t even help if the owner of the account changes their password...

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...

Emergency update! Apple patches three zero-days

Apple has released security updates for several products to address a handful of zero-day vulnerabilities that may already have been used by criminals. Updates are available for: iOS 16.7 and iPadOS 16.7 iOS 17.0.1 and iPadOS 17.0.1 watchOS 9.6.3 watchOS 10.0.1 macOS Ventura 13.6 macOS Monterey...

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...

Information stealer compromises legitimate sites to attack other sites

Security researchers at Akamai have published a blog about a new Magecart-alike web skimming campaign that uses compromised legitimate sites as command and control C2 servers. A web skimmer is a piece of malicious code embedded in web payment pages to steal personally identifiable information PII...

ChatGPT writes insecure code

Research by computer scientists associated with the Universite du Quebec in Canada has found that ChatGPT, OpenAI's popular chatbot, is prone to generating insecure code. "How Secure is Code Generated by ChatGPT?" is the work of Raphael Khoury, Anderson Avila, Jacob Brunelle, and Baba Mamadou...

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...

Zero-day spells disaster for Bitcoin ATM

Bitcoin ATMs have experienced a severe bout of cash drain after a zero-day bug was exploited to steal a total of $1.5 million in digital currency. The ATMs, located in various convenience stores, function along the lines of regular banking ATMs except your dealings are all in the cryptocurrency...

TikTok dances to the tune of $5.4m cookie fine

The big social media fines just keep coming. Hot on the heels of Meta experiencing a $277m fine from the Irish Data Protection Commission, its now TikToks turn in the spotlight thanks to a cookie crumble. Can you walk into a huge fine in 2023 for making it difficult to refuse a cookie as easily a...

Open redirect on government website sends users to adult content

Fake websites and open redirects have conspired to make things awkward for a UKGOV website. The site in question, riverconditionsdotenvironment-agencydotgovdotuk, was being abused in search engine results to redirect to various sites which arent associated with UKGOV--most of which were adult...

Fake Proof-of-Concepts used to lure security professionals

Researchers from the Leiden University published a paper detailing how cybercriminals are using fake Proof-of-Concepts PoCs to install malware on researchers' systems. The researchers found these fake PoCs on a platform where security professionals would usually expect to find them--the public co...

A first look at the builder for LockBit 3.0 Black

A few months after the LockBit gang released version 3.0 of its ransomware, LockBit 3.0 Black, the builder for it has been leaked by what seems to be a disgruntled developer. LockBit has been by far the most widely used ransomware in 2022 and the appearance of the builder could make things worse...

Warning! Instagram Stories hides a scam in plain sight

When someone finds their social media account compromised, they first think about letting their followers know. And they do. They warn others from reading any strange posts, usually containing a rogue link, before they sort out the matter behind the scenes. Some curious followers who missed these...

A week in security (Nov 15 – Nov 21)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs Instagram’s memorialize feature abused to memorialize…Instagram’s boss Evasive manoeuvres: HTML smuggling explained FBI server hijacked to send up to 100,000 bogus attack mails New Mac malware raises more questions about Apple’s security patching SharkBot Android...

Malwarebytes CrackMe – contest summary

On October 29 we published our third CrackMe Challenge and announced two parallel tracks for the contest: "The fastest solve" , and "The best write-up". In the first category "The fastest solve" , we got three winners already the first weekend following publication. Big congratulations to: @nazyw...

Phishing campaign goes old school, dusts off Morse code

In an extensive report about a phishing campaign, the Microsoft 365 Defender Threat Intelligence Team describes a number of encoding techniques that were deployed by the phishers. And one of them was Morse code. While Morse code may seem like ancient communication technology to some, it does have...

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...

How to delete your Twitter account: the deactivation process

You may decide to delete your Twitter account, because social media isn’t for everyone. Perhaps you set up an account to see what the big deal is. Maybe you wanted to hang out with friends but you’re all moving to a new platform. It’s possible the service just isn’t very good and filled with trol...

Using iPhones and AirTags to sneak data out of air-gapped networks

Someone has found an extraordinary way to exfiltrate data by piggybacking data on the backs of unsuspecting iPhones. Say what? A researcher has found out that it is possible to upload arbitrary data from non-internet-connected devices by sending Bluetooth Low Energy BLE broadcasts to nearby Apple...

Why MITRE ATT&CK matters—Choosing alert quality over quantity

Round 3 Carbanak/FIN7 results evaluation Last month, the researchers at MITRE Engenuity released the results of their most recent ATT&CK Evaluation, offering businesses an opportunity to make informed choices about their own security needs. This year, by modeling the ATT&CK testing after attack...

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...

Yandex sysadmin caught selling access to email accounts

Yandex, a European multinational technology firm best known for being the most-used search engine in Russia, has revealed it had a security breach, leading to the compromise of almost 5,000 Yandex email accounts. The company says it spotted the breach after a routine check by its security team...

Malwarebytes targeted by Nation State Actor implicated in SolarWinds breach. Evidence suggests abuse of privileged access to Microsoft Office 365 and Azure environments

A nation state attack leveraging software from SolarWinds has caused a ripple effect throughout the security industry, impacting multiple organizations. We first reported on the event in our December 14 blog and notified our business customers using SolarWinds asking them to take precautionary...

A week in security (January 4 – January 10)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we released survey results about VPN usage and found that 36 percent of our respondents use it. We also talked about Adobe Flash Player reaching its end of life—meaning, Adobe wont be supporting the updating and patching of its Flash Player software; covered the...

VideoBytes: Brute force attacks increase due to more open RDP ports

Hello Folks! In this Videobyte, we’re talking about why brute force attacks are increasing and why that is a problem for everyone. The number of RDP ports exposed to the Internet grew from about three million in January 2020 to over four and a half million in March. The reason for this increase i...

IoT cybersecurity bill passed by Senate

Days before taking a week-long Thanksgiving recess, the US Senate passed an almost mundane cybersecurity bill that, if approved by the President, will improve security guidelines and protocols for Internet of Things IoT devices purchased and owned by the Federal government. The bill, called the...

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...

‘Just tell me how to fix my computer:’ a crash course on malware detection

Malware. You’ve heard the term before, and you know it’s bad for your computer—like a computer virus. Which begs the question: Do the terms “malware” and “computer virus” mean the same thing? How do you know if your computer is infected with malware? Is "malware detection" just a fancy phrase for...

Threat actors release Troldesh decryption keys

Update: Kaspersky has updated their ShadeDecryptor tool to include decryption for the keys released by "shade team". You can download the tool and find instructions here. A GitHub user claiming to represent the authors of the Troldesh Ransomware calling themselves the “Shade team” published this...

Securing the MSP: best practices for vetting cybersecurity vendors

Ironically, to keep costs low for their enterprise and mid-market clients, managed service providers MSPs are some of the most reliant on third-party vendors—including those providing security. While this is generally not an indication of dysfunction or vulnerability, the responsible MSP will be...

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...

A week in security (November 11 – 17)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we offered statistics and information on a sneaky new Trojan malware for Android, inspected a bevy of current Facebook scams, and explained the importance of securing food and agriculture infrastructure. We also released our latest report on cybercrime tactics and...

Help prevent disaster donation scams from causing more misery

It’s a sad day when we have to warn people about medical charity scams, or tax fakeouts, or even have a week dedicated to foiling charity fraud—but here we are. With so many natural disasters occurring, from wildfires in California to tornadoes in Dallas, disaster donation scams remain a top...

300 shades of gray: a look into free mobile VPN apps

The times, they are a changin'. When users once felt free to browse the Internet anonymously, post about their innermost lives on social media, and download apps with frivolity, folks are playing things a little closer to the vest these days. Nowadays, users are paying more attention to privacy a...

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...

Google’s Nest fiasco harms user trust and invades their privacy

Technology companies, lawmakers, privacy advocates, and everyday consumers likely disagree about exactly how a company should go about collecting user data. But, following a trust-shattering move by Google last month regarding its Nest Secure product, consensus on one issue has emerged: Companies...

Millions of accounts affected in latest Facebook hack

Update 2018-10-18: According to the Wall Street Journal, the hack on Facebook was perpetrated by spammers rather than a nation state. Facebook also revised its numbers down, saying that about 30 million accounts had been compromised. Facebook announced earlier today that its social network had be...

The danger of third parties: ads, pipelines, and plugins

It may or may not be comforting to know that, ultimately, bulletproof security is out of your hands. You can have the most locked down PC on Earth, have two-factor authentication 2FA set up across the board, take sensible actions to protect your personal information, and read all the EULAs under...

Where did the tech support scam blacklist go?

For about five years, we've maintained a blacklist of recognized tech support scammers, along with websites and phone numbers they might use to contact victims. The blacklist was part of our Tech support scams: help and resource page, which tells readers how scams work, what tricks to look out fo...

Alleged creator of Fruitfly indicted for 13 years of spying

Way back at the start of last year, we took a look at something called Fruitfly, a Mac backdoor using old code that had been around for a long time and could deep breath upload files to computers, record images and video, snoop around in victims' information, take screenshots, and also log...

Fake DHS email – “Give us $350 in the next 24 hours”

Who likes threats? Nobody, as it turns out. That hasn't stopped scammers from jumping on the menacing email train - next stop, your inbox. Every now and then, we see the 419 "Hitman deployed to kill you" missive doing the rounds. On a similar threatening note, we have a fake DHS notification...

A week in security (July 31 – August 6)

Last week we explored some basic PowerShell commands, dived into the new methods used by TrickBot, and wrote at length about the Magnitude exploit kit redirection chain. Our teams were busy at both BlackHat and DefCon, and outside of those famous hallways, we also took time to fire up some basic...

Payment apps are watching what you say (Lock and Code S07E11)

This week on the Lock and Code podcast … In the United States today, you can have your bank account closed, your credit cards cancelled, and your online payments revoked for any number of crimes, like funding terrorism, engaging in money laundering, or violating sanctions. Sensible, right? Well,...

New FCC router ban could leave home networks less secure

On Monday, the Federal Communications Commission FCC updated its list of insecure equipment, outlining its reasons for adding all consumer-grade routers made outside the US. Effectively, this would stop foreign-made routers from being imported unless their manufacturers obtain an exemption, due t...

Google cracks down on Android apps abusing accessibility

Google just dropped a bombshell for app developers with the latest version of its Android mobile operating system. The company can now prevent apps from installing if they try to use the system's accessibility features. The new development, live in version 17.2 of Android, is all about security,...