The effects of climate change on cybersecurity

Outside the coronavirus pandemic and its related healthcare and economic fallout, climate change and cybersecurity are seen by many as the two most urgent problems facing our planet now and in the near future. They are two distinct and separate problems, to be sure. There are some areas, however,...

Why managed service providers (MSP) are critical for business continuity

With the threat landscape becoming more hostile to businesses, small- and medium-sized businesses SMBs are often finding it difficult to cope. Hence, they turn to managed service providers MSPs for help, not only to keep their businesses going—the concept known as business continuity—but also to...

Harnessing the power of identity management (IDaaS) in the cloud

Sometimes, consumers have it easy. Take, for example, when they accidentally lock themselves out of their personal email. Their solution? Reset the password. With one click, they're able to change their old, complicated password with a new, more memorable one. Self-service password reset is aweso...

Electrum DDoS botnet reaches 152,000 infected hosts

By Jérôme Segura, Adam Thomas, and S!Ri We have been closely monitoring the situation involving the continued attacks against users of the popular Electrum Bitcoin wallet. Initially, victims were being tricked to download a fraudulent update that stole their cryptocurrencies. Later on, the threat...

Of hoodies and headphones: a spotlight on risks surrounding audio output devices

More than a decade ago, cardiologists from the Beth Israel Medical Center in Boston presented their findings at the American Heart Association AHA Scientific Sessions 2008 about MP3 headphones causing disruptions with heart devices—such as the pacemaker and the implantable cardioverter...

“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...

Happy anniversary to Dreamcast…and its scams

This month marks 20 years since the legendary SEGA Dreamcast console was first announced. Looked on fondly by gamers, it revolutionised many aspects of gaming and brought cheapish online console gaming to the masses. Click to enlarge SEGA has endured many, many calls for it to come back as...

Hancitor: fileless attack with a DLL copy trick

This article was authored by David Sánchez, Mickaël Roger, and Jérôme Segura During the past few years, malicious spam campaigns have proven to be one of the most efficient infection vectors, in part due to a combination of social engineering and a regular number of Office vulnerabilities. The...

New Deepfakes forum goes mining with Coinhive

You may or may be familiar with the furore over Deepfakes, a relatively new development in pornography involving a tool called FacesApp, which is capable of producing a real porn clip that replaces the original actors' heads with those of celebrities—or indeed, anyone at all. Online fakes have be...

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...

ChatGPT produced graphic violent images that shocked researchers

AI assistants like ChatGPT are supposed to be safe to use, with appropriate guardrails to stop people creating harmful content. However, a British AI security firm just figured out how to make ChatGPT produce explicit material. Mindgard, a company that tests AI engines for weaknesses, found that ...

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...

Hacked sites deliver Vidar infostealer to Windows users

In recent years, ClickFix and fake CAPTCHA techniques have become a popular way for cybercriminals to distribute malware. Instead of exploiting a technical vulnerability, these attacks rely on convincing people to run malicious commands themselves. Our researchers have recently detected a campaig...

Scammers hijack websites of Bank of America, Netflix, Microsoft, and more to insert fake phone number

The examples in this post are actual fraud attempts found by Malwarebytes Senior Director of Research, Jérôme Segura. Cybercriminals frequently use fake search engine listings to take advantage of our trust in popular brands, and then scam us. It often starts, as with so many attacks, with a...

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...

Malwarebytes crushes malware all the time

About a month ago, The PC Security Channel TPSC ran a test to check out the detection capabilities of Malwarebytes. They tested Malwarebytes by executing a repository of 2015 “malicious” files to see how many Malwarebytes would detect. This YouTube video shows how a script executes the files and...

Patch now! Roundcube mail servers are being actively exploited

The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency CISA has added a vulnerability in Roundcube Webmail 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...

2024 State of Ransomware in Education: 92% spike in K-12 attacks

This article is based on research by Marcelo Rivero, Malwarebytes’ ransomware specialist, who monitors information published by ransomware gangs on their Dark Web sites. In this report, “known attacks” are those where the victim did not pay a ransom. This provides the best overall picture of...

Mr. Cooper leaks personal data of 14 million loan and mortgage customers

A major mortgage and loan company based in Dallas, working under the name Mr. Cooper Group Inc. has released more information on a recent breach. In a data breach notification, the company didnt say what type of cyberattack caused the compromise of customer data, calling it a rather non-descripti...

Apple to introduce new feature that makes life harder for iPhone thieves

Reportedly, Apple has plans to make it harder for iPhone thieves to steal your personal information even if they have your device’s passcode. A new feature called Stolen Device Protection is included in the beta version of iOS 17.3. The feature limits access to your private information in case...

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...

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...

OneView updates: Dive into Report 2.0 & the new Global Site Filter

Were rolling out two new features to enhance usability in OneView, our multi-tenant platform for Managed Service Providers: Report 2.0 and the Global Site Filter. Heres what you need to know: Report 2.0: Improved Reporting in OneView Report 2.0 offers a more streamlined approach to reporting with...

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...

Microsoft validation error allowed state actor to access user email of government agencies and others

Microsoft is getting criticized for the way in which it handled a serious security incident that allowed a suspected Chinese espionage group to access user email from approximately 25 organizations, including government agencies and related consumer accounts in the public cloud. The attacks were...

Why blocking ads is good for your digital health

Online content is largely powered and paid for by advertising. Almost every site you visit, every forum you browse, and even the online stores you buy things from is an advert extravaganza, and they dont just stop at showing cool offers for shirts at 50% off. The scaffolding the adverts sit on go...

Microsoft Azure AD flaw can lead to account takeover

Researchers have found that a flaw in Microsoft Azure AD can be used by attackers to take over accounts that rely on pre-established trust. In a nutshell, Microsoft Azure AD allows you to change the email address associated with an account without verification of whether you are in control of tha...

TikTok "a loaded gun" says NSA

America's TikTok-addicted youth is playing with a "loaded gun" according to General Paul Nakasone, Director of the National Security Agency NSA. Speaking at a US Senate hearing on Wednesday, the general said "one third of Americans get their news from TikTok", adding "one sixth of American youth...

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...

University suffers leaks, shutdowns at the hands of Vice Society

The Vice Society ransomware gang is back and making some unfortunate waves in the education sector. According to Bleeping Computer, the Society has held their ransomware laden hands up and admitted an attack on the University of Duisberg-Essen. Sadly this isnt the Universitys first encounter with...

The weirdest security stories of 2022

Theres been a lot of weird and frankly bizarre attacks over the course of 2022, nestled in amongst the usual ransomware outbreaks and data breaches. Whether were talking social media, email, or even malware, theres been a mind bending tale of tall behaviour in almost every corner. Its time to...

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...

Erbium stealer on the hunt for data

Theres a new slice of malware-as-a-service doing the rounds, although its actual newness is somewhat contested. The stealer, called Erbium, was first spotted on forums back in July 2022, but it seems nobody is quite sure when it started being deployed and snagging victims. Nevertheless, it is now...

Microsoft will disable Basic authentication for Exchange Online in less than a month

Microsoft has posted a reminder on the Exchange Team blog that Basic authentication for Exchange Online will be disabled in less than a month, on October 1, 2022. The first announcement of the change stems from September 20, 2019. With so much warning you might expect organizations to be ready, a...

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...

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...

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...

Potential cybersecurity impacts of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

On Thursday night, Russia launched a military invasion of its neighbor and former Soviet Union member Ukraine, drawing a broad rebuke from international leaders, along with significant protest from the Russian public. The toll of human life from this war is unknown, and, like the many internation...

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...

ICO challenges adtech to step up privacy protection

The UK Information Commissioners Office ICO wants the advertising industry to come up with new initiatives that address the risks of adtech, and take account of data protection requirements from the outset. The ICO is an independent body set up to uphold information rights. The technology that is...

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”...

A week in security (Oct 25 – Oct 31)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs Beyond the VPN: Ultimate online privacy with the Tor Project’s Isabela Bagueros: Lock and Code S02E20 Patch now to bypass Firefox add-ons that abuse the proxy API to deny updates How social media mistakes can impact cybersecurity Update now! Apple patches bugs in iO...

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...

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...

DOJ recovers pipeline ransom, signals more aggressive approach to cybercrime

The US Department of Justice announced Monday that it recovered much of the ransomware payment that Colonial Pipeline paid to free itself from the attack that derailed the oil and gas supplier’s operations for several days last month. The seizure of 63.7 of the initial 75 paid bitcoins represente...

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...

Barcode Scanner app on Google Play infects 10 million users with one update

UPDATE: February 12, 2021 It has come to our attention that there is another bad actor in this story. Apparently, the original publisher, LAVABIRD LTD, is not the bad actor. It is instead an account under the name "The space team." Nevertheless, there is evidence that updates of Barcode Scanner b...