Fake Flipper Zero sellers are after your money

Thanks to Malwarebytes' Stefan Dasic who provided the research and screenshots for this article. Flipper Zero, a "multi-tool device for hackers", is frequently out of stock due to its popularity in hardware circles. Flipper Zero combines research and penetration hardware tools into a single unit...

Super FabriXss: an RCE vulnerability in Azure Service Fabric Explorer

Researchers at Orca Security disclosed how they found a remote code execution vulnerability in Azure Service Fabric Explorer. The vulnerability was reported to the Microsoft Security Response Center MSRC with responsible disclosure and was included by Microsoft in their March 2023 Patch Tuesday...

"Brad Pitt," a still body, ketchup, and a knife, or the best trick ever played on a romance scammer, with Becky Holmes: Lock and Code S04E06

Becky Holmes knows how to throw a romance scammer off script--simply bring up cannibalism. In January, Holmes shared on Twitter that an account with the name "Thomas Smith" had started up a random chat with her that sounded an awful lot like the beginning stages of a romance scam. But rather than...

Malware targeting SonicWall devices could survive firmware updates

Researchers at Mandiant have identified a malware campaign targeting SonicWall SMA 100 Series appliances, thought to be of Chinese origin. The malware was likely deployed in 2021, and was able to persist on the appliances tenaciously, even surviving firmware upgrades. The malware was able to stea...

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...

Predatory Sparrow massively disrupts steel factories while keeping workers safe

Stuxnets attack on Irans uranium enrichment facilities manifested fears of cyberattacks leaking into the real world. What once was theory is now upon us. Two weeks ago, multiple Iranian steel facilities experienced a cyberattack that might have been pulled off by what many cybersecurity experts i...

Forced Chrome extensions get removed, keep reappearing

In the continued saga of annoying search extensions we have a new end-of-level boss. Victims have been reporting browser extensions that were removed by Malwarebytes, but “magically” came back later. Since the victims also complained about the message saying their browser was "managed", we had a...

Brave browser goes the extra mile to block third party cookies

Brave is testing a new feature to stop bounce tracking, a sneaky method that websites use to load third-party tracking cookies so they can gather more information about who is visiting their site. The Brave browser As you may remember from our post about the best browsers for privacy and security...

Shrootless: Microsoft finds Apple macOS vulnerability

Microsoft researchers have discovered a vulnerability in macOS, dubbed Shrootless, that can allow attackers to bypass System Integrity Protection SIP and perform malicious activities, such as gaining root privileges and installing rootkits on vulnerable devices. Microsoft reported the Shrootless...

Check your passwords! Synology NAS devices under attack from StealthWorker

Synology PSIRT Product Security Incident Response Team has put out a warning that it has recently seen and received reports about an increase in brute-force attacks against Synology devices. PSIRT suspects the botnet commonly known as StealthWorker is responsible for this increase in activity...

Kaseya CEO: “The impact of this incredibly sophisticated attack is very minimal”

The official YouTube channel of Kaseya, the latest organization attacked by no less than the criminals behind REvil ransomware, released a video of Fred Voccola, Kaseyas CEO, giving a first-hand account of what happened during the attack, the facts on affected customers, and the next steps theyre...

Lil’ skimmer, the Magecart impersonator

This blog post was authored by Jérôme Segura A very common practice among criminals consists of mimicking legitimate infrastructure when registering new domain names. This is very true for Magecart threat actors who love to impersonate Google, jQuery and many other popular brands. In this post we...

How to clear cookies

Until the information age, cookies were only known as a tasty but unhealthy snack that some people enjoyed, and others avoided. HTTP cookies, also known as computer, browser, or Internet cookies, are similarly divisive. Although some people like the more personalized browsing experience created b...

WhatsApp reverses course, will not limit app functionality

WhatsApp, the end-to-end encrypted messaging service that has lost users, its founders, and a large amount of public goodwill, issued a reversal on its recent privacy policy enforcement measures, clarifying that it will no longer punish users who refuse to share some of their data with the...

CodeCov supply-chain compromise likened to SolarWinds attack

CodeCov, a company that creates software auditing tools for developers, was recently breached the company says it was breached on April 1, and reported it on the April 15. According to investigators, this incident, in turn, gave attackers access to an unknown number of CodeCov’s clients networks...

NFTs explained: daylight robbery on the blockchain

Did you hear about the JPG file that sold for $69 million? I’ll give you some more detail, the JPG file is a piece of digital art made by Mike Winkelmann, the artist known as Beeple. The file was sold on Thursday by Christie’s in an online auction for $69.3 million. This set a record for artwork...

Android emulator abused to introduce malware onto PCs

Emulators have played a part in many tech-savvy users’ lives. They introduce a level of flexibility that not only allows another system to run on top of a user’s operating system—a Windows OS running on a MacBook laptop, for example—but also allows video gamers to play games designed to work on a...

Browser sync—what are the risks of turning it on?

Modern browsers include synchronization features like Google Chromes Sync so that all your browsers, on all your devices, share the same tabs, passwords, plugins, and other features. While this is certainly convenient, particularly when youre migrating to a new device, synchronizing browsers also...

VPN usage is increasing, says December 2020 survey

I won’t reveal my mom’s exact age, but she’s in her late 60s. Other than her phone, my mom doesn’t own or use a computer—but she knows what Zoom is. Not since “Kleenex” has a brand become so pervasive that people use the brand name as a generic term for the product. For my mom, any kind of video...

New Emotet delivery method spotted during downward detection trend

Emotet, one of cybersecurity’s most-feared malware threats, got a superficial facelift this week, hiding itself within a fake Microsoft Office request that asks users to update Microsoft Word so that they can take advantage of new features. This revamped presentation could point to internal effor...

Lock and Code S1Ep12: Pinpointing identity and access management’s future with Chuck Brooks

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 Chuck Brooks, cybersecurity evangelist and adjunct professor for Georgetown University’s Applied Intelligence Program and graduate Cybersecurity Programs...

Sodinokibi drops greatest hits collection, and crime is the secret ingredient

When a group of celebrities ask to speak with their lawyer, they usually don’t have to call in a bunch of other people to go speak with their lawyer. However, in this case it may well be a thing a little down the line. A huge array of musicians including Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Run...

How to protect yourself from doxing

“Abandon hope all ye who enter.” This ominous inscription affixed atop the gates to Hell in Dante’s Divine Comedy applies peculiarly well to describe the state of the Internet today. It’s hard to draw a parallel to the utility that the Internet has offered to modern civilization—perhaps no other...

6 ways to keep up with cybersecurity without going crazy

As we dive headfirst into National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, it seems only fitting to discuss ways to stay on top of developments in modern cybersecurity and privacy. What's the best way to stay protected? How can you determine if something is a scam? Which big company has been breached now?...

UK law enforcement: an uphill struggle to fight hackers

About 16 years ago in the UK, I walked into a local police station to report a computer crime, because walking into local police stations is how they did things back then. There may well also have been penny farthing bicycles, real pea souper fogs, Mary Poppins, and Jack the Ripper, though I coul...

A week in security (September 11 – September 17)

Last week, we dug into phishing campaigns done via Linkedin accounts, remediation versus prevention, issues with smart syringe pumps, and advised you to go patch against a Word 0day. We had some tips regarding identity theft protection, explored crowdsourced fraud, and explained YARA rules...

Cerber ransomware delivered in format of a different order of Magnitude

As a follow up to our study into the Magnitude exploit kit and its gate which we profiled in a previous blog post, we take a look at an interesting technique used to distribute the Cerber ransomware. Exploit kits are a very effective means of serving malicious payloads and an important aspect is...

All Gmail users at risk from clever replay attack

Cybercriminals are abusing Google’s infrastructure, creating emails that appear to come from Google in order to persuade people into handing over their Google account credentials. This attack, first flagged by Nick Johnson, the lead developer of the Ethereum Name Service ENS, a blockchain...

FBI warns online daters to avoid “free” online verification schemes that prove costly

The FBI has warned of fraudsters targeting users of dating websites and apps with “free” online verification service schemes that turn out to be very costly. Instead of being free, as advertised, the verification schemes involve steep monthly subscription fees, and will steal personal information...

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...

Disturbing robocaller fined $9.9 million

A federal court in Montana has fined a man $9.9 million after he was found responsible for causing thousands of unlawful and malicious spoofed robocalls. Sometimes there is good news. Well, for almost everybody except for the robocaller who was found guilty of unlawful robocalls to people in stat...

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...

FBI and CISA publish guide to Living off the Land techniques

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA, National Security Agency NSA, Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI, and other authoring agencies have released a joint guidance about common living off the land LOTL techniques and common gaps in cyber defense capabilities. Living Off The...

Patch now! Fortra GoAnywhere MFT vulnerability exploit available

On January 22, 2024, software company Fortra warned customers about a new authentication bypass vulnerability impacting GoAnywhere MFT Managed File Transfer that allows an attacker to create a new admin user. Fortra GoAnywhere MFT is a file transfer solution that organizations use to exchange the...

Malvertiser copies PC news site to deliver infostealer

The majority of malvertising campaigns delivering malicious utilities that we have tracked so far typically deceive victims with pages that are almost the exact replica of the software vendor being impersonated. For example, we have seen fake websites appearing like the real Webex, AnyDesk or...

What Gen Z really cares about when it comes to privacy

It would be easy to think that Gen Z doesn’t care about privacy. They worry less about ad tracking, do little to stem the flow of their private information online, and, as Malwarebytes recently uncovered, monitor one another’s lives far more than other generations. But it isn’t that Gen Z,...

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...

More MOVEit vulnerabilities found while the first one still resonates

In early June, we reported on the discovery of a critical vulnerability in MOVEit Transfer--known as CVE-2023-34362. After the first vulnerability was discovered, MOVEit's owner Progress Software partnered with third-party cybersecurity experts to conduct further detailed code reviews of the...

Swatting-as-a-Service is a growing and complicated problem to solve

One Telegram channel has been found to be behind a great deal of swatting incidents in the US. Using the anonymity provided by Telegram, caller ID spoofing, and voices generated by Artificial Intelligence AI, a person or group of persons calling themselves Torswats is suspected to be behind dozen...

Warning issued over Royal ransomware

As part of its StopRansomware effort, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA has published a Cybersecurity Advisory CSA about Royal ransomware. Royal ransomware is a Ransomware-as-a-service Raas that first made an appearance in January 2022. In September of that year, it began...

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...

BlackBasta is the latest ransomware to target ESXi virtual machines on Linux

BlackBasta, an alleged subdivision of the ransomware group Conti, just began supporting the encryption of VMwares ESXi virtual machines VM installed on enterprise Linux servers. Because more and more organizations have begun using VMs for cost-effectiveness and easier management of devices, this...

Online Safety Bill will legally require porn sites to verify users’ age

When Ioannis Dekas, a father of four boys, found that one of his sons had access to pornography, he and his wife became concerned. "In two weeks leading up to this moment, wed noticed a drastic change in his behavior," Dekas said in a BBC interview, "Withdrawal, a sense of anger towards his...

North Korea’s Lazarus APT leverages Windows Update client, GitHub in latest campaign

This blog was authored by Ankur Saini and Hossein Jazi Lazarus Group is one of the most sophisticated North Korean APTs that has been active since 2009. The group is responsible for many high profile attacks in the past and has gained worldwide attention. The Malwarebytes Threat Intelligence team...

The Facebook Pixel Hunt aims to unravel Facebook’s tracking methods. Will you join?

Browser developer Mozilla has announced a research project to provide insights into, and data about, a space that’s opaque to policymakers, researchers and users themselves. Tracking the trackers is the name of the game. Give up some of your data voluntarily to stop the involuntary collection by...

How to troubleshoot hardware problems that look like malware problems

Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what exactly is going wrong with your computer. What do you do if you’ve run all the scans, checked all the files, and everything says the PC is malware free? Here’s a list of common problems that resemble cybersecurity issues, but could be caused by something...

A week in security (July 26 – August 1)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: OSX.XLoader hides little except its main purpose: What we learned in the installation process. The Clubhouse database “breach” is likely a non-breach. Here’s why. Kaseya Unitrends has unpatched vulnerabilities that could help attackers expand a breach. UDP Technolo...

Binance receives the ban hammer from UK’s FCA

Binance, the worlds largest and most popular cryptocurrency exchange network, has had a rough few days. First, Japans financial regulator, the Financial Services Agency FSA, issued its second warning to Binance on Friday, 25 June, for operating in the country without permission The first warning...

How to deactivate or delete your Facebook account

People worldwide use Facebook to connect with friends and family, and to engage in pointless debates with strangers over moderately amusing cat videos. But while some feel that the social media platform is an essential part of life, others find the data scandals and privacy issues disconcerting...

Interview with a bug bounty hunter: Youssef Sammouda

Behind the scenes there are many people working in cyber-security that make the internet a safer place. Youssef Sammouda is one of these people. He has submitted at least a hundred reports to Facebook which have been resolved, making Facebook a safer platform along the way. Generally speaking,...