Tor vs VPN—What is the difference?

Our data is a precious commodity and there are plenty of people who would like to get their hands on it, from spouses and marketing teams to crooks and state-sponsored spies. Because of that, tools like Tor and Virtual Private Networks VPNs are growing in popularity. But while both tools can...

Mice “taking over the world!”, one Windows machine at a time

Famously, Pinky and the Brain were a pair of animated mice that wanted to take over the world. Of course they never succeed, but maybe they just set their sights too high. Because while mice may not be taking over the world yet, they are taking over computers. In the last week, security researche...

Apple security hampers detection of unwanted programs

Anyone who uses Malwarebytes software is probably familiar with the fact that, in addition to things like malware and adware, Malwarebytes detects potentially unwanted programs PUPs. These are programs that exhibit a variety of unsavory behaviors, but that, for legal reasons, cannot be called...

Scammers are spoofing bank phone numbers to rob victims

It can be a very convincing trick… “You can check the number in your display online sir. You’ll see I’m really calling from your bank.” That is, of course, if you are unaware that phone numbers can be spoofed. Then again, they wouldn’t be successful scammers if they weren’t convincing. If you...

Amazon Prime Day—8 tips for safer shopping

Avid Amazon Prime Day shoppers may have been worried theyd missed it this year—thanks coronavirus. Fear not, last month Amazon announced Prime Day will take place three months after its original annual date, beginning today. And this year, itll take place over two days, rather than one. This coul...

Teaching from home might become part of every teachers’ job description

“Hey Joe, I wanted to remind you that starting next Monday you will be expected to teach from home. The lesson material is in your inbox along with the list of pupils that are expected to follow them. We are sure it will take some adjustments, but we trust that by working together we can make the...

A week in security (January 8 – January 14)

It's very early in the year, yet everyone has already had a complete meltdown pun intended over a number of serious vulnerabilities found in legacy and modern microprocessors. Last week, rightly so, vendors released patches for hardware and OSes to help mitigate these threats. However, problems i...

Mobile Menace Monday: upping the ante on Adups

Adups is back on our radar. The same China-based company caught collecting an abundance of user data and creating a backdoor on mobile devices in 2016 has another malicious card to throw down. This time, it's an auto installer we detect as Android/PUP.Riskware.Autoins.Fota. We thought they cleane...

A week in security (June 19 – June 25)

Last week, we expanded on all the different technologies that Malwarebytes uses to break the attack chain and our Incident Response solution. We also warned you about a Roblox Robux generator scam and a phish targeting customers of Barclays Bank. Below are notable news stories and security-relate...

119 Edge extensions promised useful tools, instead downloaded malware

Microsoft has removed 119 extensions from the Edge add-on store which were all tied to one adware campaign. In a paper titled "Inside StegoAd: How We Disrupted a Massive Malicious Extension Campaign," Microsoft researchers detail how they uncovered and dismantled a sophisticated malware campaign...

Meta pauses controversial employee-tracking program after security review

Meta has paused a controversial employee‑tracking program after an internal security review found that highly granular keystroke and screen‑capture data from staff laptops was far more widely accessible inside the company than intended. The program was part of Meta's Model Capability Initiative...

Fake verification pages are stealing Steam accounts from players

Online gamers should watch out for a convincing scam that aims to steal your Steam account. The scam uses fake FACEIT verification pages that look legitimate, complete with official branding, working links, and what appears to be a real Steam login window. By the time it asks for your password,...

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...

A week in security (April 27 – May 3)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: On world password day, Microsoft says fewer passwords, more passkeys Apple AirPlay SDK devices at risk of takeover—make sure you update The 3 biggest cybersecurity threats to small businesses Zero-day attacks on browsers and smartphones drop, says Google Fake Socia...

The 3 biggest cybersecurity threats to small businesses

In an online world filled with extraordinarily sophisticated cyberattacks—including organized assaults on software supply chains, state-directed exploitations of undiscovered vulnerabilities, and the novel and malicious use of artificial intelligence AI—small businesses are forced to prioritize a...

Google fixes two actively exploited zero-day vulnerabilities in Android

Google has patched 62 vulnerabilities in Android, including two actively exploited zero-days in its April 2025 Android Security Bulletin. When we say "zero-day" we mean an exploitable software vulnerability for which there was no patch at the time of the vulnerability being exploited or published...

Texas scrutinizes four more car manufacturers on privacy issues (updated)

The Texas Attorney General’s Office has started an investigation into how Ford, Hyundai, Toyota, and Fiat Chrysler collect, share, and sell consumer data, expanding an earlier probe launched last year into how modern automakers are potentially using customer driving data. We've addressed cars and...

‘Fix It’ social-engineering scheme impersonates several brands

More and more, threat actors are leveraging the browser to deliver malware in ways that can evade detection from antivirus programs. Social engineering is a core part of these schemes and the tricks we see are sometimes very clever. Case in point, there has been an increase in attacks that involv...

Android users targeted on Facebook and porn sites, served adware

Android users, be on your guard against adware trying to infect your device. The adware—known as MobiDash—is spreading via several channels, according to ThreatDown research. One of the characteristics that makes MobiDash stand out is that it can be added to legitimate apps without changing how t...

Neiman Marcus confirms breach. Is the customer data already for sale?

Luxury retail chain Neiman Marcus has begun to inform customers about a cyberattack it discovered in May. The attacker compromised a database platform storing customers personal information. The letter tells customers: “Promptly after learning of the issue, we took steps to contain it, including ...

Advance Auto Parts customer data posted for sale

A cybercriminal using the handle Sp1d3r is offering to sell 3 TB of data taken from Advance Auto Parts, Inc. Advance Auto Parts is a US automotive aftermarket parts provider that serves both professional installers and do it yourself customers. Allegedly the customer data includes: Names Email...

Criminal record database of millions of Americans dumped online

A cybercriminal going by the names of EquationCorp and USDoD has released an enormous database containing the criminal records of millions of Americans. The database is said to contain 70 million rows of data. Post by USDoD on a breach forum The leaked database is said to include full names, date...

Wireless carriers fined $200 million after illegally sharing customer location data

After four years of investigation, the Federal Communications Commission FCC has concluded that four of the major wireless carriers in the US violated the law in sharing access to customers’ location data. The FCC fined AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon a total of almost $200 million for...

Ring agrees to pay $5.6 million after cameras were used to spy on customers

Amazons Ring has settled with the Federal Trade Commission FTC over charges that the company allowed employees and contractors to access customers private videos, and failed to implement security protections which enabled hackers to take control of customers’ accounts, cameras, and videos. The FT...

Cannabis investment scam JuicyFields ends in 9 arrests

Europol and its associates have arrested 9 people in conjunction with a cannabis investment scam known as "JuicyFields". The suspects used social media to lure investors to their website. There they found information about a “golden opportunity” to invest in the cultivation, harvesting and...

Giant Tiger breach sees 2.8 million records leaked

Someone has posted a database of over 2.8 million records to a hacker forum, claiming they originated from a March 2024 hack at Canadian retail chain Giant Tiger. When asked, they posted a small snippet as proof. The download of the full database is practically free for other active members of th...

35-year long identity theft leads to imprisonment for victim

Sometimes the consequences of a stolen identity exceed anything you could have imagined. Matthew David Keirans, a 58-year-old former hospital employee has pleaded guilty to assuming another man’s identity since 1988. He was convicted of one count of making a false statement to a National Credit...

A week in security (March 25 – March 31)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: MFA bombing taken to the next level How to back up your Mac How to back up your Windows 10/11 PC to OneDrive How to back up your iPhone to a Windows computer How to back up your iPhone to a Mac How to back up your iPhone to iCloud Powering the future of ThreatDown...

YouTube ordered to reveal the identities of video viewers

Federal US authorities have asked Google for the names, addresses, telephone numbers, and user activity of accounts that watched certain YouTube videos, according to unsealed court documents Forbes has seen. Of those users that weren’t logged in when they watched those videos between January 1 an...

Vans warns customers of data breach

Skater brand Vans emailed customers last week to tell them about a recent “data incident.” On December 13, 2023, Vans said it detected unauthorized activities on its IT systems, attributed to "external threat actors." An investigation revealed that the incident involved some personal information ...

No “Apple magic” as 11% of macOS detections last year came from malware

We’re going to let you in on a little cybersecurity secret… There’s malware on Mac computers. There pretty much always has been. As revealed in our 2024 ThreatDown State of Malware report, a full 11% of all detections recorded by Malwarebytes on Mac computers in 2023 were for different variants o...

Facebook fatal accident scam still rages on

Recently I wrote about a malvertising campaign on Facebook that has been going on for almost a year. Apparently Facebook is struggling to stop this campaign, so now this type of campaign is showing up in other languages than English. I have seen two different types in German. First Facebook scam...

Mother of all Breaches may contain NEW breach data

On January 23, 2024, we reported on the discovery of billions of exposed records online, now commonly referred to as the “mother of all breaches” MOAB. Since then, the source of the dataset has been identified as data breach search engine Leak-Lookup. Prevention platform SpyCloud compared the MOA...

AI used to fake voices of loved ones in “I’ve been in an accident” scam

The San Francisco Chronicle tells a story about a family that almost got scammed when they heard their sons voice telling them hed been in a car accident and hurt a pregnant woman. Sadly, this is becoming more common. Scammers want to spread panic among their victims, and to do this, they feign a...

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...

$19 Stanley cup deal is a Black Friday scam

Scammers never miss an opportunity to make a quick buck, and love to piggy back on the latest trends. So what better way to kick off the scamming season than by offering Black Friday sales on one of the most popular products around: a Stanley cup. We found an ad on Facebook offering a Stanley...

Ransomware group steps up, issues statement over MGM Resorts compromise

The recent attack on MGM Resorts generated lots of speculation with regard to what the cause was. Some folks claimed the culprit was ransomware. Well, confirmation is now forthcoming as an affiliate of the BlackCat/ALPHV ransomware group is said to be the one responsible for the attack and...

iPhone 15 launch: Wonderlust scammers rear their heads

Yesterday, Apple launched its latest iPhone and Watch models at its massive Wonderlust event. As with many high profile launches like this, it attracted not just a mountain of press, but a whole load of scammers too. One site uses the Apple brand to host a cryptocurrency scam. The hook is a...

Malwarebytes acquires Cyrus Security

Today, I am absolutely thrilled to share some exciting news: Malwarebytes is officially welcoming Cyrus Security into our family. This acquisition signifies an exciting chapter in our journey, and I wanted to share why this development is so special, and what it means for the millions who trust...

YouTube makes sweeping changes to tackle spam on Shorts videos

YouTube is rolling out unclickable links. Video portals like YouTube have had to deal with spam comments and bogus links for many years. With new additions to a platform come new places for scammers to go about their business. YouTube is now cracking down on links posted to the comments section o...

Minecraft fans beware: Players and servers at risk from BleedingPipe vulnerability

Minecraft players interested in modding are potentially at risk of compromise. A Remote Code Execution RCE vulnerability in certain Minecraft mods allows for malicious commands on both servers and clients. The vulnerability, named BleedingPipe, allows attackers to take over a targeted server...

Docker Hub images found to expose secrets and private keys

Numerous Docker images shared on Docker Hub are exposing sensitive data, according to a study conducted by researchers at the German university RWTH Aachen. Needless to say, this poses a significant security risk. In traditional software development, programmers code an application in one computi...

"Free" Evil Dead Rise movie scam lurks in Amazon listings

Scammers are using a novel technique with Amazon listings to trick fans of Evil Dead into downloads they may not want, and expensive rolling payments they have no interest in. Evil Dead Rise, the breakout horror film of 2023, started with big cinema numbers and has moved on to a victory lap in...

Why businesses need a disinformation defense plan, with Lisa Kaplan: Lock and Code S04E13

When you think about the word "cyberthreat," what first comes to mind? Is it ransomware? Is it spyware? Maybe it's any collection of the infamous viruses, worms, Trojans, and botnets that have crippled countless companies throughout modern history. In the future, though, what many businesses migh...

Navigating mobile malware trends: Crucial insights and predictions for MSPs

Whether a company gives them out or they're owned by the employees or students, mobile devices are like honey for cybercriminals. And the kicker? Most of these devices are not protected enough. Just check out the following stats from last year: 18 percent of clicked phishing emails in 2022 came...

Avoid this "lost injured dog" Facebook hoax

Facebook users are advised to be wary of posts involving injured dogs receiving treatment at a vet surgery, or pets sitting next to people post-operation adorned with bandages and plaster casts. The dog-themed missives all follow a similar format, with the primary change between them being the...

Investment fraud overtakes business email compromise as most reported fraud

The Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI has published its 2022 Internet Crime Report. One of the most notable points is that investment fraud has now overtaken business email compromise BEC as the most reported and most damaging type of fraud. The numbers are based on the complaints reported to t...

Ryuk ransomware laundering leads to guilty plea

Ryuk, a mainstay of the ransomware scene for some years until it transformed into Conti and then split off into other groups after that, is back in the news again... though not in the way you might have imagined. Its not a compromise, or a surprise comeback. What we have is a guilty plea, as a...

How to protect your business from supply chain attacks

Threat actors know that attacking the supply chain is not just a smart strategy but also a winning one. When American store Target found a Trojan designed to steal card details on its POS point-of-sale systems in 2013, no one expected that the route into its secure environment was its heating,...

Why does technology no longer excite us? Lock and Code S04E01

When did technology last excite you? If Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is to be believed, your own excitement ended, simply had to end, after turning 35 years old. Decades ago, at first writing privately and later having those private writings published after his...