WhatsApp for Windows vulnerable to attacks. Update now!

In a security advisory, Meta has disclosed a vulnerability that allowed an attacker to run arbitrary code on a user’s system that existed in all WhatsApp versions before 2.2450.6. WhatsApp offers a desktop application for Windows and macOS, which users can synchronize with their mobile devices...

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,...

“Can you try a game I made?” Fake game sites lead to information stealers

The background and the IOCs for this blog were gathered by an Expert helper on our forums and Malwarebytes researchers. Our thanks go out to them. A new, malicious campaign is making the rounds online and it starts simple: Unwitting targets receive a direct message DM on a Discord server asking...

A week in security (December 2 – December 8)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Europol takes down criminal data hub Manson Market in busy month for law enforcement Americans urged to use encrypted messaging after large, ongoing cyberattack Crypto’s rising value likely to bring new wave of scams AI chatbot provider exposes 346,000 customer...

“Simply staggering” surveillance conducted by social media and streaming services, FTC finds

The US Federal Trade Commission FTC released a report that examines the data collection and use practices of major social media and video streaming services, finding that—and this will not come as a surprise to our regular readers—the companies engaged in vast surveillance of consumers in order t...

TEMU sued for being “dangerous malware” by Arkansas Attorney General

Chinese online shopping giant Temu is facing a lawsuit filed by State of Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin, alleging that the retailers mobile app spies on users. “Temu purports to be an online shopping platform, but it is dangerous malware, surreptitiously granting itself access to virtually...

A week in security (June 3 – June 9)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Google will start deleting location history Advance Auto Parts customer data posted for sale Husband stalked ex-wife with seven AirTags, indictment says Microsoft Recall snapshots can be easily grabbed with TotalRecall tool Financial sextortion scams on the rise Sa...

Watch out for tech support scams lurking in sponsored search results

This blog post was written based on research carried out by Jérôme Segura. A campaign using sponsored search results is targeting home users and taking them to tech support scams. Sponsored search results are the ones that are listed at the top of search results and are labelled "Sponsored". They...

Free VPN apps turn Android phones into criminal proxies

Researchers at HUMAN’s Satori Threat Intelligence have discovered a disturbing number of VPN apps that turn users devices into proxies for cybercriminals without their knowledge, as part of a camapign called PROXYLIB. Cybercriminals and state actors like to send their traffic through other people...

Clorox counts the cost of cyberattack

Cleaning products maker Clorox has reported losses of $49 million in connection to a cyberattack it suffered in August of last year. On Monday, August 14, 2023, Clorox disclosed it had identified unauthorized activity on some of its IT systems. Despite a business continuity plan, the incident...

Malwarebytes wins every MRG Effitas award for 2 years in a row

ThreatDown Endpoint Protection EP achieved the highest possible score 100% and received certifications for Level 1, Exploit, Online Banking, and Ransomware in the most recent anti-malware efficacy assessment results for the Q3 2023 evaluation performed by MRG Effitas, a world leader in independen...

How AI hallucinations are making bug hunting harder

Bug bounty programs that pay people for finding bugs are a very useful tool for improving the security of software. But with the availability of artificial intelligence AI as seen in the popular large language models LLMs like ChatGPT, Bard, and others it looks like there is a new problem on the...

Windows Hello fingerprint authentication can be bypassed on popular laptops

Researchers have found several weaknesses in Windows Hello fingerprint authentication on Dell Inspiron 15, Lenovo ThinkPad T14, and Microsoft Surface Pro X laptops. Microsoft’s Offensive Research and Security Engineering MORSE asked the researchers to evaluate the security of the top three...

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...

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...

Big changes to Twitter verification: How to spot a verified account

Twitter has made some fairly major changes to how its verified checkmark status works, and its already causing some confusion. If you rely on the checkmark symbol for confirmation that the individual or business tweeting is actually the real deal, your regular process is now different. How...

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...

Optus data breach "attacker" says sorry, it was a mistake

Since Australian telecoms company Optus disclosed a security breach on September 22, 2022, a lot has been happening. Much of it reads like a movie script. Prologue A hacker acting under the pseudonym "optusdata" claims to have stolen the data of 10 million Optus customers. The information include...

Uber hacked

Uber informed the public on Thursday it was responding to a cybersecurity incident after somebody breached its network. From what we have been able to find out so far, the attacker managed to compromise an employees access to the chat app Slack. The intruder may also have gained access to the...

Can your EDR handle a ransomware attack? 6-point checklist for an anti-ransomware EDR

Most cybersecurity experts agree that having Endpoint Detection and Response software is essential to fighting ransomware today--but not every EDR is equal. Businesses, especially small-to-medium sized ones with limited budget or IT resources, need to make sure that their EDR is cost-effective,...

Ransomware review: July 2022

Malwarebytes Threat Intelligence builds a monthly picture of ransomware activity by monitoring the information published by ransomware gangs on their Dark Web leak sites. This information represents victims who were successfully attacked but opted not to pay a ransom. In July, LockBit maintained...

Roblox breached: Internal documents posted online by unknown attackers

A data compromise situation has impacted Roblox Corporation, the developers of the massive smash-hit video game Roblox. An as-yet unknown attacker has breached an employee account, and is in the process of exposing the data theyve collected. Nobody knows if theyve exhausted their newly-plundered...

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...

Cardiologist moonlighted as successful ransomware developer

The US has charged a 55-year-old French-Venezuelan cardiologist from Venezuela with "attempted computer intrusions and conspiracy to commit computer intrusions". This was revealed in an unsealed complaint in a federal court in Brooklyn, New York. Moises Luis Zagala Gonzales worked as a ransomware...

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...

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...

Okta admits 366 customers may have been impacted by LAPSUS$ breach

Through its usual means of communication, its Telegram channel, the LAPSUS$ group has posted screenshots of what appears to be superuser access to the Okta management console. As such, the group claims to have acquired "superuser/admin" access to Okta.com and gained access to Oktas customer data,...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

Teaching cybersecurity skills to special needs children with Alana Robinson: Lock and Code S02E18

School is fully back in session for kids all across the world, and for many students, that means logging back online to learn, do homework, submit assignments, and maybe even continue some distance learning, depending on their schools pandemic precautions. But with more Internet activity comes...

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...

3 security lessons from an MSP that survived the Kaseya VSA attack

Jay Tipton, chief executive for the Managed Service Provider MSP Technology Specialists, remembers his Fourth of July weekend this year like many MSP employees likely remember theirs: As a bit of a nightmare. “That’s like the worst feeling you’ll ever have,” Tipton said about his initial...

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...

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...

Ransomware disrupts food supply chain, Exchange exploitation suspected

When malware found its way into the network of Bakker Logistiek, a company specializing in the transport and warehousing of food and other products, on the night of 4 to 5 April, its IT systems ground to a halt. And, along with them, the reception of orders from clients, and the delivery of goods...

VideoBytes: Ryuk Ransomware Targeting US Hospitals

Hello Folks! In this Videobyte, we’re talking about why hospitals are being targeted by the Ryuk ransomware, what tricks they are using to pull this off and what their motivations might be. Ryuk ransomware is being spread to hospitals using targeted phishing emails that infect systems with the...

Lock and Code S1Ep21: Lesson planning your school’s cybersecurity with Doug Levin

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 Doug Levin, founder of the K12 cybersecurity resource center and advisor to the K12 Security Information Exchange, about how schools can plan for a...

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...

RegretLocker, new ransomware, can encrypt Windows virtual hard disks

Cybersecurity researchers discovered a new ransomware last month called RegretLocker that, despite a no-frills package, can do serious damage to virtual hard disks on Windows machines. Through a clever trick, RegretLocker can bypass the often-long encryption times required when encrypting a...

Sandbox in security: what is it, and how it relates to malware

To better understand modern malware detection methods, it’s a good idea to look at sandboxes. In cybersecurity, the use of sandboxes has gained a lot of traction over the last decade or so. With the plethora of new malware coming our way every day, security researchers needed something to test ne...

A week in security (September 14 – 20)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we looked at Fintech industry developments, specifically the differences between Europe and the US, and we analyzed how some charities and the advertising industry are tied together. We also told readers about what companies can do to counter domain name abuse. In...

Charities and the advertising industry: data ecosystems and privacy risks

Data makes the world go round, more often than not via advertising and its tracking mechanisms. Whether you think making money from large volumes of PII to keep the web ticking over is a good thing, or a sleazy data-grab often encouraging terrible ad practices, it’s not going to go away anytime...

Report: Pandemic caused significant shift in buyer appetite in the dark web

Last year, credentials for PayPal, Facebook, and Airbnb were among the top goods on high demand in the dark web, aka the Internets underground market. But due to the COVID-19 outbreak, with most of the worldwide population sheltering, working, and studying indoors, many facets of life have made a...

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...