A week in security (April 22 – 28)

Last week on Labs, we looked at security threats to headphones, privacy options in the world of law, and wandered through the FBI’s 2018 IC3 online crime report. We also explored another MageCart attack, and we released our 2019 Q1 Crime Tactics and Techniques report. Other cybersecurity news...

“Funky malware format” found in Ocean Lotus sample

Recently, at the SAS conference I talked about "Funky malware formats"—atypical executable formats used by malware that are only loaded by proprietary loaders. Malware authors use them in order to make static detection more difficult, because custom formats are not recognized as executable by AV...

Digital forensics: How to recover deleted files

Where I personally have a problem remembering names and birthdays, computers have a hard time “forgetting” things. Even when we tell them to do so. If you ever unintentionally deleted a file, you may have been able to retrieve it from the Recycle Bin. Or, if it was past that stage and the file wa...

Anthropic’s Mythos AI used social engineering to target real people

Anthropic’s Mythos AI agent, tested by the UK AI Safety Institute AISI, has reportedly attempted a real‑world social‑engineering style hack against GitHub maintainers by creating fake human profiles, pressuring them to accept malicious code, and then editing logs to hide its tracks when challenge...

Don’t get fooled by TikTok resin art scams

Resin art has become a popular corner of TikTok, with some videos attracting millions of views. But not every glossy, colorful post is what it claims to be. Scammers are using the look of handmade resin art to trick buyers, collectors, and even fellow artists into sending money for work that eith...

Shark vacuum flaw exposes cameras, home maps and Wi-Fi passwords

Shark’s cloud-connected robot vacuums are currently exposed by an unpatched AWS Amazon Web Services IoT Internet of Things policy flaw that could turn one compromised device into a remote-control skeleton key for many others in the same region, with access to cameras, maps, and Wi‑Fi passwords. A...

A week in security (June 8 – June 14)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Stolen iPhones could soon be worth a lot less to thieves Fake verification pages are stealing Steam accounts from players Google can be liable for false AI Overviews, court rules VRChat says reported data breach never happened Children’s phones must block nude imag...

88% of people struggle to tell what’s real online

What would you trade for a technology that can do almost anything? For many people, the answer is clear: Everything they thought they could trust. In a few, short years, Artificial Intelligence AI tools have granted people unfettered access to easier writing, faster image generation, quicker...

Meta’s face-recognition code raises new concerns about smart glasses

Meta’s smart glasses are once again at the center of a privacy debate due to face recognition. WIRED reports that Meta had quietly embedded unreleased face-recognition code, internally called “NameTag,” into its Meta AI companion app, which powers the company’s smart glasses. The code was not...

A fake FileZilla site hosts a malicious download

A trojanized copy of the open-source FTP client FileZilla 3.69.5 is circulating online. The archive contains the legitimate FileZilla application, but with a single malicious DLL added to the folder. When someone downloads this tampered version, extracts it, and launches FileZilla, Windows loads...

What privacy? Perplexity wants your data, builds browser to track you and serve ads

AI search service Perplexity AI doesn't just want you using its app—it wants to take over your web browsing experience too. The company is planning to launch its own browser, called Comet, next month. But what does this mean for your privacy? Launched in 2022, Perplexity AI is an AI-powered searc...

Update your iPhone now: Apple patches vulnerability used in “extremely sophisticated attacks”

Apple has patched a vulnerability in iPhone and iPad that was under active exploitation by cybercriminals. The update is available for: iPhone XS and later, iPad Pro 13-inch, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later,...

New ransomware group demands Change Healthcare ransom

The Change Healthcare ransomware attack has taken a third cruel twist. A new ransomware group, RansomHub, has listed the organisation as a victim on its dark web leak site, saying it has 4 TB of "highly selective data," which relates to "all Change Health clients that have sensitive data being...

Update Chrome now! Google patches possible drive-by vulnerability

Google has released an update to Chrome which includes seven security fixes. Version 123.0.6312.86/.87 of Chrome for Windows and Mac and 123.0.6312.86 for Linux will roll out over the coming days/weeks. The easiest way to update Chrome is to allow it to update automatically, which basically uses...

Law enforcement trolls LockBit, reveals massive takedown

In an act of exquisite trolling, the UKs National Crime Agency NCA has announced further details about its disruption of the LockBit ransomware group by using the groups own dark web website. The LockBit dark web site has a new look Since the demise of Conti in 2022, LockBit has been unchallenged...

How ransomware operators try to stay under the radar

An often heard remark is that when your security solution notices a ransomware attack, it’s already too late. Theres a lot of truth in that, if you consider the encryption process to be the ransomware attack. However, these days encryption is just a part of many ransomware attacks. Some of the...

Chrome pushes forward with plans to limit ad blockers in the future

Google has announced it will shut down Manifest V2 in June 2024 and move on to Manifest V3, the latest version of its Chrome extension specification that has faced criticism for putting limits on ad blockers. Roughly said, Manifest V2 and V3 are the rules that browser extension developers have to...

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...

Meta whistleblower says company has long ignored how it sexually endangers children

At a Senate hearing, a Meta whistleblower has revealed some shocking numbers around children’s experiences of its platforms. Arturo Béjar, a former engineering director at Meta, testified before the US Congress on Tuesday. Not only did he share his own daughters’ experience suffering harassment o...

Introducing Advanced Device Control: Shielding businesses from USB threats

With experts noting a troubling threefold surge in USB drive malware incidents in early 2023, Device Control has just leveled up with a key addition: the Advanced Auto Scanning & Block Until Scan feature. Heres the breakdown: When a USB device is connected, ThreatDown now doesnt just control...

Using ChatGPT to cheat on assignments? New tool detects AI-generated text with amazing accuracy

ChatGPT and similar Large language models LLMs can be used to write texts about any given subject, at any desired length at a speed unmatched by humans. So its not a surprise that students have been using them to "help" write assignments, much to the dismay of teachers who prefer to receive...

Medical research data Advarra stolen after SIM swap

Clinical research company Advarra has reportedly been compromised after a SIM swap on one of their executives. SIM swapping, also known as SIM jacking, is the act of illegally taking over a target’s cell phone number. This can be done in a number of ways, but one of the most common methods involv...

Should you allow your browser to remember your passwords?

At Malwarebytes weve been telling people for years not to reuse passwords, and that a password manager is a secure way of remembering all the passwords you need for your online accounts. But we also know that a password manager can be overwhelming, especially when youre just getting started. Once...

Malwarebytes named leader across six endpoint security categories, marking its ease of use, in G2 Fall 2023 results

The peer-to-peer review source G2 has released their Fall 2023 reports, ranking Malwarebytes as a leader across a number of endpoint protection categories. In the most recent results, Malwarebytes is the only vendor to earn the "Easiest to Use" and "Easiest Admin" recognition for its Endpoint...

Cloudflare Tunnel increasingly abused by cybercriminals

Cloudflare Tunnel provides you with a secure way to connect your resources to Cloudflare without a publicly routable IP address. Cybercriminals are increasingly using this service to keep their activities from being detected. Cloudflare Tunnel, also known by its executable name, Cloudflared,...

Estée Lauder targeted by Cl0p and BlackCat ransomware groups

Estee Lauder is currently at the heart of a compromise storm, revealing a major security issue via a Security Exchange Commission SEC filing on Tuesday. Although no detailed explanation of what has taken place is given, there is confirmation that an attack allowed access to some systems and...

GitHub accidentally exposes RSA SSH key

Late last week, GitHub tweeted that it had replaced its RSA SSH "out of an abundance of caution," after accidentally exposing the key on a publicly accessible repository. How the accidental exposure managed to happen is unknown, but it means that anyone that happened to notice it and was able to...

A week in security (March 20 - 26)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: How to avoid potentially unwanted programs "ViLE" members posed as police officers and extorted victims Google reveals 18 chip vulnerabilities threatening mobile, wearables, vehicles A look at a Magecart skimmer using the Hunter obfuscator The NBA tells fans about...

DeepStreamer: Illegal movie streaming platforms hide lucrative ad fraud operation

This investigation was a joint effort between Malwarebytes Threat Intelligence's Jerome Segura, DeepSee's Rocky Moss and Antonio Torres. Key findings Over a dozen unique domains were found selling ad inventory through Google Ad Manager, even though the pages were embedded invisibly under the...

An 18 year scam odyssey of stranded astronauts

There is a semi-mythical scam which comes around every couple of years, like some sort of digital bad luck version of Halleys Comet. Instead of flood, famine, and the death of Kings, it brings confusion, some level of hilarity, and a slice of sheer disbelief. Unfortunately it also threatens to...

APT28 attack uses old PowerPoint trick to download malware

Researchers at Cluster25 have published research about exploit code that's triggered when a user moves their mouse over a link in a booby-trapped PowerPoint presentation. The code starts a PowerShell script that downloads and executes a dropper for Graphite malware. Graphite is named after...

Have we lost the fight for data privacy? Lock and Code S03E16

At the end of 2021, Lock and Code invited the folks behind our news-driven cybersecurity and online privacy blog, Malwarebytes Labs, to discuss what upset them most about cybersecurity in the year prior. Today, we're bringing those same guests back to discuss the other, biggest topic in this spac...

Discord Shame channel goes phishing

A variant of a popular piece of social media fraud has made its way onto Discord servers. Multiple people are reporting messages of an "Is this you" nature, tied to a specific Discord channel. is this a new discord scam or something? someone I haven’t spoken to in years randomly sent me this and...

TikTok is “unacceptable security risk” and should be removed from app stores, says FCC

Brendan Carr, the commissioner of the FCC Federal Communications Commission, called on the CEOs of Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores. In a letter dated June 24, 2022, Carr told Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai that "TikTok poses an unacceptable national security risk due to its...

Rogue cryptocurrency billboards go phishing for wallets

Billboards and digital real world advertising has raised many questions of privacy and anonymity in recent years. Until now, the primary concern has been mostly legal, yet potentially objectionable geolocation and user profiling. Bluetooth beacons work in tandem with geofenced billboards to send...

College closes down after ransomware attack

Lincoln College, one of the few rural schools in Illinois, said that it will permanently close on Friday, May 13, after 157 years, partly due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and partly due to a long recovery after a ransomware attack in December 2021. The institution notified the Illinois...

New UAC-0056 activity: There’s a Go Elephant in the room

This blog post was authored by Ankur Saini, Roberto Santos and Hossein Jazi. UAC-0056 also known as SaintBear, UNC2589 and TA471 is a cyber espionage actor that has been active since early 2021 and has mainly targeted Ukraine and Georgia. The group is known to have performed a wiper attack in...

Elden Ring exploit traps players in infinite death loop

Back in January, we wrote about how the Dark Souls games had their online components switched off for PC gamers. This is because someone figured out how to execute code remotely on the target’s PC. Given that the multiplayer angle of Souls games is rather important, this was quite a body blow for...

HBO sued for sharing subscriber data with Facebook

HBO Max subscribers Angel McDaniel and Constance Simon filed a class-action lawsuit against HBO on Tuesday, alleging that the company has violated their privacy by sharing subscriber viewing data with Facebook. Bursor & Fisher filed the case on behalf of McDaniel and Simon. According to case...

KONNI evolves into stealthier RAT

This blog post was authored by Roberto Santos KONNI is a Remote Administration Tool that has being used for at least 8 years. The North Korean threat actor that is using this piece of malware has being identified under the Kimsuky umbrella. This group has been very busy, attacking political...

SideCopy APT: Connecting lures to victims, payloads to infrastructure

This blog post was authored by Hossein Jazi and the Threat Intelligence Team. Last week, Facebook announced that back in August it had taken action against a Pakistani APT group known as SideCopy. Facebook describes how the threat actors used romantic lures to compromise targets in Afghanistan. I...

Improving security for mobile devices: CISA issues guides

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA has released two actionable Capacity Enhancement Guides CEGs to help users and organizations improve mobile device cybersecurity. Consumers One of the guides is intended for consumers. There are an estimated 294 million smart phone users i...

Phishers target TikTok influencers with verification promises and copyright threats

Influencers on TikTok are feeling the pinch of scams and phishing thanks to targeted campaigns hungry for fresh logins. The phishing campaigns make use of much older tactics seen across multiple platforms down the years. It’s a one-two combo of “Do this quickly, or else something bad will happen”...

Fake ransomware warnings hit WordPress sites: How to stay safe

A ransomware warning has appeared out of nowhere and started taking over WordPress sites. The warning, with its black background and red writing, says: “SITE ENCRYPTED Countdown FOR RESTORE SEND 0.1 BITCOIN: address redacted create file on site /unlock.txt with transaction key inside” But theres...

TrickBot helps Emotet come back from the dead

Probably one of the best known threats for the past several years, Emotet has always been under intense scrutiny from the infosec community. On several occasions, it appeared to take an early retirement, but then again it came back. However, when multiple law enforcement agencies seized control o...

A week in security (Oct 4 – Oct 10)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs Does Cybersecurity Awareness Month actually improve security? Police take a piece out of a ransomware gang, but won’t say which one Neiman Marcus data breach affects millions Windows 11 is out. Is it any good for security? Criminals were inside Syniverse for 5 years...

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,...

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...

Largest DDoS attack ever reported gets hoovered up by Cloudflare

On the Cloudflare blog, the American web infrastructure behemoth that provides content delivery network CDN and DDoS mitigation services reports that it detected and mitigated a 17.2 million request-per-second rps DDoS attack. To put that number in perspective. The company reports that this is...

Fired by algorithm: The future’s here and it’s a robot wearing a white collar

Black Mirror meets 1984. Imagine that your employer uses a bot to keep track of your “production level.” And when this bot finds that you are an under-performer it fires off a contract-termination mail. Does this sound like the world you live in? Unfortunately, for some people it is. The case...