Ban Pegasus spyware, urges European Union Data Protection Supervisor

The European Data Protection Supervisor EDPS has urged the EU to ban the development and deployment of spyware with the capabilities of Pegasus to protect fundamental rights and freedoms. What is Pegasus? On July 18, a group of 17 newspaper and media organizations—aided by Amnesty International’s...

SoNot SoSafe: Android malware disguises itself as secure messaging app

If you haven’t heard of SoSafe Chat, you will now. This Android app, purported as a secure messaging application that uses end-to-end encryption, is the latest ruse cybercriminals put upon smartphone users, particularly those based in India, to infect their devices with GravityRAT, a piece of...

The importance of backing up

What does backing up something mean? Backing up is the act of making a copy or copies of a file. These files are stored somewhere other than where the originals are located. You may only need to back up a few files, or it might be a much bigger effort. Requirements may differ greatly depending on...

How social media mistakes can impact cybersecurity

We talked to members of our Malware Removal Support team and asked them what kind of problems they get asked to solve for our customers. To understand why they get to handle these questions, it is also necessary to know that the Malwarebytes software is unable to resolve the problems users are...

What is an .exe file? Is it the same as an executable?

You may often see .exe files but you may not know what they are. Is it the same as an executable file? The short answer is no. So whats the difference? What is an .exe file? Exe in this context is a file extension denoting an executable file for Microsoft Windows. Windows file names have two part...

Ransom Disclosure Act would mandate ransomware payment reporting

In an effort to better understand and clamp down on the ransomware economy and its related use of cryptocurrencies, US Senator and past presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren and US House Representative Deborah Ross introduced a new bill last week that would require companies and organizations to...

The joy of phishing your employees

Many companies set up phishing test programs for their employees, often as part of a compliance requirement involving ongoing employee education on security topics. The aim of these programs is to train employees on how to spot a malicious link, not click it, and forward it on to the appropriate...

Ransomware scammers target artists with fake Krita revenue deals

The Krita digital painting application is currently being targeted by ransomware authors. Available on Steam and other platforms, it’s a powerful tool with a very cheap purchase price and great reviews. A perfect bit of bait to start reeling in potential victims, in other words. How does the scam...

Microsoft warns about phishing campaign using open redirects

The Microsoft 365 Defender Threat Intelligence Team posted an article stating that they have been tracking a widespread credential phishing campaign using open redirector links. Open redirects have been part of the phisher’s arsenal for a long time and it is a proven method to trick victims into...

T-Mobile customers, change your PINs

At the end of last week, T-Mobile was investigating reports of a “massive” customer data breach. A hacker claimed to stolen 100 million people’s data from T-Mobile’s servers, which included everything from names and driver licences to addresses and social security numbers. Its now confirmed...

Ransomware attack shuts down Colonial Pipeline fuel supply

UPDATE 10:47 AM Pacific Time, May 10: At 8:55 AM Pacific Time, the FBI confirmed that Colonial Pipeline was attacked by Darkside. According to a statement posted on Twitter, the FBI said: "The FBI confirms that the Darkside ransomware is responsible for the compromise of Colonial Pipeline network...

Google to start automatically enrolling users in two-step verification “soon”

If you use a Google account, it may soon be mandatory to sign up to Googles two-step verification program. As recently as 2017, a tiny amount of GMail users made use of its two-step options. Maybe the uptake is still slow, and Google has decided enough is enough. With so much valuable data stuffe...

Beware: not so festive social media scams

We’re now into the most crucial stage of Christmas festivities, where money and gifts are on the march…and social media is a conduit for both good and bad tidings. This is the absolute best time for social media scammers to make their move. A little confidence trick here, the promise of good chee...

The value of cybersecurity integration for MSPs

For modern Managed Service Providers MSPs, gone are the days of disparate workflows, and that’s really for the best. Imagine trying to run a successful MSP business today—finding potential customers, procuring new clients, developing purchase orders, managing endpoints, and sending invoices—all...

A week in security (October 12 – October 18)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we looked at journalism’s role in cybersecurity on our Lock and Code podcast, gave tips for safer shopping on Amazon Prime day, and discussed an APT attack springing into life as Academia returned to the real and virtual campus environment. We also dug into potenti...

How Covid fatigue puts your physical and digital health in jeopardy

After six months of social distancing, sheltering in place, working from home, distance learning, mask-wearing, hand-washing, and plenty of hand-wringing, people are pretty damn tired of COVID-19. And with no magic bullet yet and no end in sight, annoyance has turned into exasperation and even...

PCI DSS compliance: why it’s important and how to adhere

PCI DSS is short for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. Every party involved in accepting credit card payments is expected to comply with the PCI DSS. The PCI Standard is mandated by the card brands, but administered by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council PCI SSC. The...

Data Accountability and Transparency Act of 2020 looks beyond consent

In the United States, data privacy is hard work—particularly for the American people. But one US Senator believes it shouldn’t have to be. In June, Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio released a discussion draft of a new data privacy bill to improve Americans’ data privacy rights and their...

A week in security (July 20 – 26)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, our Lock and Code podcast delved into Bluetooth and beacon technology. We also dug into APT groups targeting India and Hong Kong, covered a law enforcement bust, and tried to figure out when, exactly, a Deepfake is a Deepfake. Other cybersecurity news Insecure emai...

VPNs: should you use them?

We are going to talk today about something you’ve likely heard of before: VPNs, or Virtual Private Networks. We at Malwarebytes have delved into these tools in greater depth, and we’ve literally discussed them on the digital airwaves. But we want to answer a question we’ve been getting more and...

A week in security (April 27 – May 3)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we looked at how secure the cloud is, understood why unexpected demand can influence an organization to consider their “just in time” JIT system, speculated on why the threat actors behind the Troldesh ransomware suddenly released thousands of decryption keys,...

Sextortion scammers getting creative

We've covered sextortion before, focusing in on how the core of the threat is an exercise in trust. The threat actor behind the campaign will use whatever information available on the target that causes them to trust that the threat actor does indeed have incriminating information on them. They...

When spyware goes mainstream

Stealware. Surveillanceware. Stalkerware. These are terms alternately used to effectively identify a file-based threat that has been around since 1996: spyware. More than two decades later, consumer or commercial spyware has gone mainstream, and the surprising number of software designed, openly...

Cybercrime tactics & techniques Q2 2018

A generally slow quarter reflects an overall lull in cybercrime, picking up where Q1 left off with cryptominers continuing to dominate, ransomware continuing to evolve through experimentation, and exploits making a small but significant comeback. In nearly every malware category for both business...

A week in security (January 15 – January 21)

Last week on Labs, we gave you some background information about cookies, specifically which ones to worry about and why. We also warned you about scams surrounding the Mega Millions winner, who promised to donate his money to good causes. We analyzed a cryptocurrency miner using a very old...

Cookies: Should I worry about them?

Starting off the new year, many of us are worried about cookies—how many we ate over the holidays and how we're going to avoid them in the break room, for example. With so much cybercrime and data theft swirling around like daily bomb cyclones, there's more than a few folks worried about the kind...

All rise! Mind these digital crimes and arm yourself against them

Have you noticed that, in this year alone, headlines are inundated with words that contain "cyber"? Cybercrime. Cyberattack. Cybersecurity. Cyberwarfare. The cyber. Okay, that was last year. Frankly, with so much going on, we hardly remember a time when the term "cyber" seemed quaint and a little...

Today is System Administrator Appreciation Day

And we are enormously grateful. What started off as a tongue-and-cheek offshoot of Administrative Professionals Day has now become a special holiday that people around the world recognize and practice. Dear reader, today is System Administrator Appreciation Day. Let’s be honest, maintaining the...

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...

Grok fooled into stealing user chat, location data, and more

A new type of prompt injection attack shows why giving AI assistants access to browsers, code tools, and private data deserves extra caution. AI researchers describe "Cryptographic Context Injection"—an attack that hides malicious instructions inside encrypted data. The AI is then persuaded to...

Scammers are using fake crypto AML checkers to drain your wallet

Scammers are creating fake crypto wallet-checking sites that promise to tell you whether a wallet is linked to suspicious activity. Instead, they try to trick you into giving them access to your crypto. What real AML checking looks like AML stands for anti-money laundering. These are rules that...

Scammers target OnlyFans users with deepfakes

OnlyFans creators are used to posting adult videos of themselves online, but what happens if someone takes control of their images and uses them for fraud? This week, USA Today revealed how criminals are impersonating OnlyFans creators using AI tools. They use deepfake content to lure the real...

Malwarebytes for Windows, now available on the Microsoft Store

When you’re setting up a new PC or looking for an app you already know, the Microsoft Store is often the easiest place to start. It’s built into Windows and lets you find, install, and update apps in one place. Malwarebytes for Windows is now available there too. Malwarebytes for Windows is still...

Trusting your kids online isn’t enough (Lock and Code S07E14)

This week on the Lock and Code podcast … There is a lot going on right now regarding the safety of kids online. In the United States, the majority of state legislatures have passed age verification laws requiring a variety of websites to more rigorously verify the age of their visitors. In the...

Fake crypto gift card sites are getting harder to spot

You want to turn some crypto into a gift card. You search, click a promising result, and land on a site that looks polished and legitimate: a dark theme, trust badges, and promises of instant delivery and no ID checks. You wouldn't think to question it. But a professional-looking website isn't...

Fake Perplexity Chrome extension spies on your searches

Type "Perplexity" into the Chrome Web Store and you get a range of browser extensions offering access to the popular AI search service. Until last week, one of them was called "Search for perplexity ai ," and it delivered something extra that users hadn't bargained for: a small hidden surveillanc...

Inside the dark web: Stolen identities for 95¢, malware, and scams-for-hire

Most people have heard of the dark web, but few understand what it actually looks like or what goes on there. To separate fact from fiction, our research team spent 48 hours exploring it firsthand and documenting what we found. The dark web isn't inherently bad. It also serves legitimate purposes...

A week in security (June 15 – June 21)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Nearly 15,000 infected websites cleaned in SocGholish crackdown Apple patches Beats Studio Buds flaw that could turn earbuds into a wiretap Microsoft working on a fix for RoguePlanet, a flaw that grants full PC control Retro gaming fans are the new target for fake...

AI is distorting the Holocaust (Lock and Code S07E10)

This week on the Lock and Code podcast … In May of last year, a warning about AI came from somewhere unexpected: The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Posting publicly on social media, the museum warned about a Facebook account using generative AI to create fake images of people who died in the...

May 2026 Patch Tuesday: no zero-days but plenty to fix

This month’s Patch Tuesday remedies 137 security vulnerabilities, including 31 marked critical by Microsoft, with no zero-days actively exploited in the wild. Microsoft defines a zero-day as “a flaw in software for which no official patch or security update is available yet.” This month, Microsof...

Malwarebytes Privacy VPN receives full third-party audit

For the careful VPN customer today, so much depends upon a privacy promise, made, too often, by a company without proof. No-logs policies, modern encryption algorithms, a refusal to store sensitive customer information, and full ownership of servers are just some of the features that contribute t...

Apple patches WebKit bug that could let sites access your data

Apple has released a Background Security Improvement to patch a flaw that could allow malicious websites to bypass browser protections and access data from other sites. What is it? The patched WebKit vulnerability is described as: “A cross-origin issue in the Navigation API was addressed with...

A week in security (March 2 – March 8)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: One click on this fake Google Meet update can give attackers control of your PC Beware of fake OpenClaw installers, even if Bing points you to GitHub Fake CleanMyMac site installs SHub Stealer and backdoors crypto wallets Windows File Shredder: When deleting a file...

Age verification vendor Persona left frontend exposed, researchers say

Researchers investigating Discord’s age-verification checks say they discovered an exposed frontend belonging to Persona, the identity-verification vendor used by Discord. It revealed a far more expansive surveillance and financial intelligence stack than a simple “teen safety” tool. A short whil...

Fake LastPass maintenance emails target users

The LastPass Threat Intelligence, Mitigation, and Escalation TIME team has published a warning about an active phishing campaign in which fake “maintenance” emails pressure users to back up their vaults within 24 hours. The emails lead to credential-stealing phishing sites rather than any...

Google patches 107 Android flaws, including two being actively exploited

Google has patched 107 vulnerabilities in Android in its December 2025 Android Security Bulletin, including two high-severity flaws that are being actively exploited. The December updates are available for Android 13, 14, 15, and 16. Android vendors are notified of all issues at least a month...

‘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...

Hello again, FakeBat: popular loader returns after months-long hiatus

The web browser, and search engines in particular, continue to be a popular entry point to deliver malware to users. While we noted a decrease in loaders distributed via malvertising for the past 3 months, today's example is a reminder that threat actors can quickly switch back to tried and teste...

Affirm says Evolve Bank data breach also compromised some of its customers

Buy now, pay later payment specialist Affirm has warned that holders of its payment cards had their personal information exposed after a ransomware attack and data breach at Evolve Bank & Trust. In a form 8-K, submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission SEC, Affirm states: “Because the...

Google’s Chrome changes make life harder for ad blockers

Despite protests, Google is rolling out changes in the Chrome browser that make it harder for ad blockers to do their job. Starting last Monday, June 3, 2024, Chrome Beta, Dev, and Canary channels will see the effects of the implementation of the new extension platform Manifest V3. The gradual...