A week in security (July 20 – July 26)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Don’t get fooled by TikTok resin art scams Call of Duty Mobile scam uses fake free points to steal player accounts OpenAI’s agent escaped its sandbox during a security test Google wants to store a selfie video of your face Beyond the Play Store: How Android threats...

The Odyssey piracy scams appear within hours of the movie’s release

Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is one of the biggest movie releases of the year and scammers wasted no time taking advantage of it. Within hours of the film's release, we found scams targeting people looking for pirated copies. Some used fake browser warnings on piracy sites, while others...

How to use GitHub safely

GitHub is rapidly becoming the go-to platform for sharing software. Originally built for developers to collaborate on code, it now hosts millions of projects ranging from hobby scripts to widely used applications. That popularity, however, has also made it an attractive delivery platform for...

How the Reddit and Discord false report scam steals accounts

A stranger messages you on Reddit. They say someone reported them, and the reporting account looks a lot like yours. Was it you? It wasn't. That's not really the point of the message. This version relies entirely on social engineering. There is no malware and no malicious links. It starts with a...

Massive AI investment scam network spans 15,500 domains

Researchers tracked a large AI‑themed investment scam campaign involving more than 15,000 domains. It uses cloaking and deepfakes to hide from security tools while targeting ordinary users. Criminals abused the Keitaro ad-tracking platform as part of a cloaking system so real victims see scam...

Google Chrome’s silent 4GB AI download problem [updated]

Google Chrome has been quietly downloading a 4GB AI model onto users' devices without asking first. Security researcher Alexander Hanff, aka ThatPrivacyGuy, reports that Chrome has been silently installing Gemini Nano, Google's on-device AI model, as a file called weights.bin stored in the...

Fake Zoom and Google Meet scams install Teramind: A technical deep dive

UPDATE February 27, 2026 : We have added more clarity around the abuse of legitimate commercial products, and of Teramind's stealth mode. Important note: Teramind, the software vendor referenced in this article, has stated they are not affiliated with the threat actors described, did not deploy t...

February 2026 Patch Tuesday includes six actively exploited zero-days

Microsoft releases important security updates on the second Tuesday of every month, known as “Patch Tuesday.” This month’s update patches fix 59 Microsoft CVE’s including six zero-days. Let’s have a quick look at these six actively exploited zero-days. Windows Shell Security Feature Bypass...

Microsoft Office zero-day lets malicious documents slip past security checks

Microsoft issued an emergency patch for a high-severity zero-day vulnerability in Office that allows attackers to bypass document security checks and is being exploited in the wild via malicious files. Microsoft pushed the emergency patch for the zero‑day, tracked as CVE-2026-21509, and classifie...

Millions of people spied on by malicious browser extensions in Chrome and Edge

Researchers have discovered a campaign that tracked users’ online behavior using 18 browser extensions available in the official Chrome and Edge webstores. The total number of installs is estimated to be over two million. These extensions offered functionality, received good reviews, touted...

Disney “breached,” data dumped online

A group of cybercriminals going by the handle NullBulge claims to have downloaded the Slack channels used by Disney’s developers. “DisneySlackLeak Disney has had their entire dev slack dumped. 1.1TiB of files and chat messages. Anything we could get our hands on, we downloaded and packaged up. Wa...

(Almost) everything you always wanted to know about cybersecurity, but were too afraid to ask, with Tjitske de Vries: Lock and Code S05E13

This week on the Lock and Code podcast… Ready to know what Malwarebytes knows? Ask us your questions and get some answers. What is a passphrase and what makes it—what’s the word? Strong? Every day, countless readers, listeners, posters, and users ask us questions about some of the most commonly...

American Express warns customers about third party data breach

American Express has sent affected customers a warning that “a third party service provider engaged by numerous merchants experienced unauthorized access to its system.” In a subsequent update, American Express explained that it was not a service provider, but a merchant processor that suffered t...

Pig butchering scams, how they work and how to avoid them

Pig butchering scams are big business. There are hundreds of millions of dollars involved every year. The numbers are not very precise because some see them as a special kind of romance scam, while others classify them as investment fraud. The victims in Pig Butchering schemes are referred to as...

“I’ll miss him so much” Facebook scam uses BBC branding to lure victims

Facebook scams are a constant nuisance and vary from like-farming to scams that can cost you some serious money. The latest one we found is a bit morbid. Recently, I’ve seen quite a few posts on my timeline that looked like this: Without going into details the post says: “I can’t believe he’s gon...

Malwarebytes consumer product roundup: The latest

At Malwarebytes, we’re constantly evolving to protect our customers. These days, our products don’t just protect you from malware, we protect your identity, defend you from ads, safeguard your social media, and keep your mobile safe too. Here are the innovations we’ve made in our products recentl...

The US wants governments to commit to not paying ransoms

As the White House prepares to host its annual International Counter Ransomware Initiative CRI summit, Bloomberg reports that the US is pushing other countries to stop paying ransoms to cybercriminals. The CRI wants to enhance international cooperation to combat the growth of ransomware, and its ...

Ransomware reinfections on the rise from improper remediation

Attack. Remediate. Repeat? Speak to any organization infiltrated by ransomware--the most dangerous malware in the world--and theyll be blunt: Theyd do anything to avoid getting hit twice. But ransomware attacks have been ramping up in 2023 and reinfections are occurring all over the globe, forcin...

Teenage members of Lapsus$ ransomware gang convicted

A wave of video game developer compromises has come to a court-based conclusion for those responsible, with several convictions the end result. Arion Kurtaj, and a second teen who cannot be named due to their age, are finding themselves to be in quite a lot of trouble after repeated and sustained...

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...

KillNet hits healthcare sector with DDoS attacks

At the end of January, the Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center warned that the KillNet group is actively targeting the US healthcare sector with distributed denial-of-service DDoS attacks. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA says it helped dozens of hospitals...

Update now! GoAnywhere MFT zero-day patched

An emergency patch 7.1.2 has been released for an actively exploited zero-day vulnerability found in the GoAnywhere MFT administrator console. GoAnywhere MFT, which stands for managed file transfer, is a software solution that allows businesses to manage and exchange files in a secure and complia...

ION starts bringing customers back online after LockBit ransomware attack

ION Group, a financial software firm, is reportedly beginning to bring clients back online after being hit by a ransomware attack late last week. The Russian-linked LockBit ransomware group claimed responsibility for attacking a division of ION Group, which affecting 42 clients in Europe and the...

New Twitter data dump is a cleaned up version of old Twitter dump

News of data dumps is often scary as the possibilities of identity theft, account takeovers, user de-anonymization, and other online data-driven threats rear their ugly heads. Reading about the latest reports of a new Twitter dump, however, is like opening up an already-healed wound, as the dump...

A week in security (December 5 - 11)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Security advisories are falling short. Here's why, with Dustin Childs: Lock and Code S03E25 Eufy "no cloud" security cameras streaming data to the cloud Snapchat gives Californians more power over their personal data Update now! Emergency fix for Google Chrome's V8...

Final Fantasy 14 players targeted by QR code phishing

Final Fantasy 14, the smash-hit online role playing game, is under fire from scammers. The attack is a devious way to try and compromise player accounts, making use of free item promises and bogus QR codes. As the game is a constantly changing service, its almost impossible to keep up with new...

AirTag stalking: What is it, and how can I avoid it?

More voices are being raised against the use of everyday technology repurposed to attack and stalk people. Most recently, its reported that Ohio has proposed a new bill in relation to electronic tagging devices. The bill, aimed at making short work of a loophole allowing people with no stalking o...

FBI warns of bogus job postings on recruitment sites

Before Christmas was a busy time down at the fake job factory, with all manner of dubious antics out to ruin someone’s day. We’re now info February and the bogus job offers show no sign of abating. In fact, the FBI considers it to be such a problem that its issued an alert. This isn’t your typica...

How a few PhD students revealed that phishing trainings might just not work: Lock and Code S03E03

Youve likely fallen for it before—a simulated test sent by your own company to determine whether or not its employees are vulnerable to one of the most pernicious online threats today: Phishing. Phishing has evolved in recent history, and as scammers have rolled out increasingly clever—and...

Here’s what data the FBI can get from WhatsApp, iMessage, Signal, Telegram, and more

Not every secure messaging app is as safe as it would like us to think. And some are safer than others. A recently disclosed FBI training document shows how much access to the content of encrypted messages from secure messaging services US law enforcement can gain and what they can learn about yo...

Patch now! FatPipe VPN zero-day actively exploited

According to its marketing team, a FatPipe MPVPN can make your VPN "900% more secure." Well, I dont know about that, but I do know a way to make your MPVPN admin console 100% more secure, and that you should do so right away, by installing the latest version of its software. Why? Because older...

When renting a hitman online goes horribly wrong

You might think looking up an illegal act online, and then visiting a website claiming to be all about doing said act, would be a huge mistake. Nobody would do this, right? Right? Its too wild to contemplate. You can barely move online for warnings about tracking or tracing. Even your web browser...

A multi-stage PowerShell based attack targets Kazakhstan

This blog post was authored by Hossein Jazi. On November 10 we identified a multi-stage PowerShell attack using a document lure impersonating the Kazakh Ministry of Health Care, leading us to believe it targets Kazakhstan. A threat actor under the user name of DangerSklif perhaps in reference to...

“Free Steam game” scams on TikTok are Among Us

TikTok has long since evolved beyond being thought of as "just" dance clips, also becoming a home for educational and informative content presented in a fun and casual way. There are accounts themed around pretty much any interest you can think of, and one of the biggest is gaming. Its not all...

Stop. Do you really need another security tool?

The last few years have seen a mushrooming of the number and type of security tools that organizations can use to protect themselves. You can have tools, tools to integrate the tools, tools to monitor the tools, APIs, dashboards so many dashboards, and machine learning with everything. And yet,...

Neiman Marcus data breach affects millions

Millions of Neiman Marcus customers have had their personal and financial information exposed in a data breach. In a press release the company confirmed unauthorized access to customer online accounts. According to the press release 4.6 million customers of Neiman Marcus Group stores, specificall...

Police take a piece out of a ransomware gang, but won’t say which one

One of the worlds ransomware groups appears to be a couple of members short today—and about two million dollars less rich—but nobody is sure which one. Police are staying tight-lipped about whos short-handed following the arrest of two individuals in Kyiv, Ukraine. The arrests are part of a joint...

Uber security alert scam spoofs real Uber number—Watch out!

This morning Malwarebytes Labs received a scam masquerading as a security alert from Uber. The alert was pretty convincing and used the kind of language were used to seeing in genuine security emails and SMS messages. It read: Your Uber account was recently logged into from iPhone in London. If...

Zoom and gloom? Video comms org agrees to settle for $85m

Zoom has agreed to an $85m settlement regarding privacy, zoom-bombing, and data sharing. The class action privacy lawsuit filed in the US against the embattled company wasn’t particularly impressed with the following: Zoom-bombing running wild in video sessions. Zoom-bombing, the practice of...

Game over: Apex Legends players locked out by protest message

Messages placed directly in or around games is a common hack technique. It can be used for trolling, phishing, scams, or anything else the message-placer can think of. Messages can also be placed in games for the purposes of advertising but thats a tale for a different day. Recently, players of...

Nude photo theft offers lessons in selfie security

Two former college graduates are in a lot of trouble after breaking into other students accounts and stealing sensitive personal data. They’re facing some serious charges with restitution payments of $35,430, potential jail time, and the threat of very big fines thrown into the mix. What happened...

A week in security (December 14 – December 20)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs we kept you updated on the SolarWinds attack, we warned about the special dangers that come with the Christmas season, published a threat profile for the Egregor ransomware, warned how a lead generation scam was targeting potential Malwarebytes MSP partners, and...

A week in security (November 23 – November 29)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we talked with Chris Boyd about charities that track you online. We also looked back at Zoom, and wondered whether its any safer months after its first vulnerability was reported. We talked about how Apples security is hampering the detection of potentially unwante...

A week in security (November 9 – November 15)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we reported on multiple patch releases: from Mozillas Firefox and Thunderbird to Googles Chrome. We also had a chat with our resident experts, Adam Kujawa and John Donovan, about the future of IoT cybersecurity in our latest Lock and Code podcast episode. Lastly, w...

FIFA 21 game scams: watch out for unsporting conduct

Despite COVID-19, soccer season is slowly ebbing its way back into daily life around the world. Its also sneaking back onto TV screens in the form of huge-budget video games. Step up to the plate, FIFA 21. FIFA games: the football juggernaut The FIFA series is an absolute monster in terms of sale...

Release the Kraken: Fileless injection into Windows Error Reporting service

This blog post was authored by Hossein Jazi and Jérôme Segura. On September 17th, we discovered a new attack called Kraken that injected its payload into the Windows Error Reporting WER service as a defense evasion mechanism. That reporting service, WerFault.exe, is usually invoked when an error...

Taurus Project stealer now spreading via malvertising campaign

For the past several months, Taurus Project—a relatively new stealer that appeared in the spring of 2020—has been distributed via malspam campaigns targeting users in the United States. The macro-laced documents spawn a PowerShell script that invokes certutil to run an autoit script ultimately...

The cybersecurity skills gap is misunderstood

Nearly every year, a trade association, a university, an independent researcher, or a large corporation—and sometimes all of them and many in between—push out the latest research on the cybersecurity skills gap, the now-decade-plus-old idea that the global economy lacks a growing number of...

A week in security (May 25 – 31)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we published our most recent episode of our podcast Lock and Code, providing an in-depth discussion on web browser privacy, looked at the membership bump for the Coalition against Stalkerware, and dug into EDR solutions. We also looked at twists added to the threat...

A week in security (March 30 – April 5)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we offered readers tips for safe online shopping now that cybercriminals are ramping up Internet-based attacks, showed the impact that GDPR has around the world, and helped users understand how social media platforms mine their personal data. We also hosted our...