The strangest cybersecurity events of 2020: a look back

This year is finally coming to an end, and it only took us about eight consecutive months of March to get here. There is a ton to talk about, and that’s without even discussing the literal global pandemic. You see, 2020s news stories were the pressure-cooker product of mania, chaos, and the...

Update now! Chrome patches zero-day that was exploited in the wild

A Chrome patch has been issued with an advisory stating that the Stable channel has been updated to 88.0.4324.150 for Windows, Mac and Linux. The only noteworthy thing about this update is a patch for a zero-day vulnerability that has been actively exploited in the wild. But that one looks to be...

Google Chrome zero-day: Now is the time to update and restart your browser

Update 2019-03-21 A proof of concept for CVE-2019-5786 was published by Exodus Intel. In our earlier post we exercised caution before claiming we would have blocked this zero-day, but we can now say with confidence that an older version of Malwarebytes 1.12.1.122 would have mitigated this attack:...

Skimmer acts as payment service provider via rogue iframe

Criminals continue to target online stores to steal payment details from unaware customers at a rapid pace. There are many different ways to go about it, from hacking the shopping site itself, to compromising its supply-chain. A number of online merchants externalize the payment process to a...

How to send an anonymous email

Sometimes readers ask us how to send an anonymous email or how criminals and scammers manage to send anonymous emails. Since this is not an easy question to answer, because, for starters, there are several ways to interpret the question, I’ll try to give you some information here. Interpret the...

How your iPhone could tell you if you’re being stalked

The latest iOS beta suggests that Apple’s next big update will include an iPhone feature that warns users about hidden, physical surveillance of their location. The feature detects AirTags, Apples answer to trackable fobs made by Tile, and serves to block the potential abuse of the much-rumored...

Plugin vulnerabilities exploited in traffic monetization schemes

In their Website Hack Trend Report, web security company Sucuri noted that WordPress infections rose to 90 percent in 2018. One aspect of Content Management System CMS infections that is sometimes overlooked is that attackers not only go after the CMSes themselves—WordPress, Drupal, etc.—but also...

Video game portrayals of hacking: NITE Team 4

Note: The developers of NITE Team 4 granted the blog author access to the game plus DLC content. A little while ago, an online acquaintance of mine asked if a new video game based on hacking called NITE Team 4 was in any way realistic, or “doable” in terms of the types of hacking it portrayed...

What SMBs can do to protect against Log4Shell attacks

As you may already know, the business, tech, and cybersecurity industries have been buzzing about Log4Shell CVE-2021-44228, aka Logjam, the latest software flaw in an earlier version of the Apache Log4j logging utility. As the name suggests, a logger is a piece of software that logs every event...

Threat spotlight: DarkSide, the ransomware used in the Colonial Pipeline attack

Late last week, the business network systems of Colonial Pipeline, the biggest supplier of fuels on the East Coast of the United States, were compromised due to a ransomware attack, forcing the company to temporarily shut down its operations while investigations are underway. Monday morning,...

Electrum Bitcoin wallets under siege

By Adam Thomas and Jérôme Segura, with additional contributions from Vasilios Hioueras and S!Ri Since at least late December 2018, many users of the popular Electrum Bitcoin wallet have fallen victim to a series of phishing attacks, which we estimate netted crooks well over 771 Bitcoins—an amount...

Compromising vital infrastructure: communication

Have you ever been witness to a Wi-Fi failure in a household with school-aged children? If so, I don’t have to convince you that communication qualifies as vital infrastructure. For the doubters: when you see people risking their lives in traffic just to check their phone, you'll understand why...

Magniber ransomware: exclusively for South Koreans

The Magnitude exploit kit has been pretty consistent over the last few months, dropping the same payload—namely, the Cerber ransomware—and targeting a few select countries in Asia. Strangely, Magnitude EK disappeared in late September, and for a while we wondered whether this was yet another...

US Facebook users can now claim Cambridge Analytica settlement cash

US-based Facebook users can now claim a piece of the enormous settlement payment by Meta, Facebook's parent company, over the Cambridge Analytica scandal. This news follows Meta agreeing to pay $725 million in December 2022 to settle the longstanding class action lawsuit filed by Lauren Price in...

Software renewal scammers unmasked

Weve been tracking a fraudulent scheme involving renewal notifications for several months now. It came to our attention because the Malwarebytes brand as well as other popular names were being used to send fake invoices via email. The concept is simple but effective. You receive an invoice for a...

Hacking with AWS: incorporating leaky buckets into your OSINT workflow

Penetration testing is often conducted by security researchers to help organizations identify holes in their security and fix them, before cybercriminals have the chance. While there's no malicious intent for the researcher, part of his job is to think and act like a cybercriminal would when...

Godfather Android banking malware is on the rise

Researchers at Cyble Research & Intelligence Labs CRIL have found a new version of the Android banking Trojan called Godfather. The new version of Godfather uses an icon and name similar to a legitimate application named MYT Music, which is hosted on the Google Play Store with over 10 million...

New Mac ransomware spreading through piracy

Editor’s note: The original name for the malware, EvilQuest, has been changed due to a legitimate game of the same name from 2012. The new name, ThiefQuest, is also more fitting for our updated understanding of the malware. A Twitter user going by the handle @beatsballert messaged me yesterday...

Threat profile: RansomHouse makes extortion work without ransomware

Cybersecurity is an industry known for many hats: white hats, black hats, and grey hats. White hats refer to "the good people" in the industry for those who are not in the know. They are malware analysts, security researchers, and penetration testers. Black hats are the opposite of white hats, an...

Chrome targeted by Magnitude exploit kit

Exploit kits EK are not as widespread as they used to be. One of the reasons is likely that most exploit kits targeted software that is hardly ever used anymore. Internet Explorer, Silverlight, and Flash Player to name a few, have been deprecated, replaced, and quickly lost their user-base. So,...

What is a honeypot? How they are used in cybersecurity

Cybersecurity experts strive to enhance the security and privacy of computer systems. Quietly observing threat actors in action can help them understand what they have to defend against. A honeypot is one such tool that enables security professionals to catch bad actors in the act and gather data...

A week in security (July 1 – 7)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we explained what to do when you find stalkerware, how cooperating apps and automatic permissions are setting you up for failure, and why you should steer clear of Bitcoin Cash generators. Other cybersecurity news: A former Chief Information Officer CIO of Equifax...

Recipe for success: tech support scammers zero in via paid search

Tech support scammers are known for engaging in a game of whack-a-mole with defenders. Case in point, last month there were reports that crooks had invaded Microsoft Azure Cloud Services to host fake warning pages, also known as browser lockers. In this blog, we take a look at one of the top...

Out of character: Homograph attacks explained

In April, Xudong Zheng, a security enthusiast based in New York, found a flaw in some modern browsers in the way they handle domain names. While Chrome, Firefox, and Opera already have security measures in place to cue users that they might be visiting a destination they thought was legitimate, a...

IoT forecast: Running antivirus on your smart device?

In 2016, threat actors pulled off a basic but devastating botnet attack that harnessed the power of the Internet of Things IoT. After gathering a list of 61 default username and password combinations for IoT devices, threat actors scanned the Internet for open Telnet ports and, when they found a...

Fake Elder Scrolls Online developers go phishing on PlayStation

A player of popular gaming title Elder Scrolls Online recently took to Reddit to warn users of a phish via Playstation messaging. This particular phishing attempt is notable for ramping up the pressure on recipients—a classic social engineering technique taken to the extreme. A terms of service...

Update now! Many HP printers affected by three critical security vulnerabilities

In two security advisories, HP has alerted users to the existence of security vulnerabilities in several of its printer models. In total, four vulnerabilities were patched, but three of those vulnerabilities are rated critical, and all of them can lead to remote code execution RCE when exploited...

How to securely send your personal information

This story originally ran on The Parallax and was updated on July 3, 2019. A few months ago, my parents asked a great security question: How could they securely send their passport numbers to a travel agent? They knew email wasn’t safe on its own. Standard email indeed isn’t safe for sending...

Adware and PUPs families add push notifications as an attack vector

Some existing families of potentially unwanted programs and adware have added browser push notifications to their weapons arsenal. Offering themselves up as browser extensions on Chrome and Firefox, these threats pose as useful plugins then haggle users with notifications. A family of search...

Process Doppelgänging meets Process Hollowing in Osiris dropper

One of the Holly Grails for malware authors is a perfect way to impersonate a legitimate process. That would allow them to run their malicious module under the cover, being unnoticed by antivirus products. Over the years, various techniques have emerged in helping them to get closer to this goal...

New Flash Player zero-day comes inside Office document

Update 2018-02-06: Adobe has released a patch for this vulnerability. More information is available here. We tested this zero-day with a proof-of concept that was made available. Rather than launching it from within Office, we turned it into a drive-by download attack. The animation below shows...

Iranian hacking group uses compromised email accounts to distribute MSP remote access tool

Researchers have uncovered a new campaign by hacking group MuddyWater, aka Static Kitten, in which a legitimate remote access tool is sent to targets from a compromised email account. The targets in this campaign are reportedly in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Oman, Qatar,...

Update now! Apple patches two zero-day vulnerabilities that may have been actively exploited

Apple has released security updates for macOS Monterey 12.3.1, iOS 15.4.1, iPadOS 15.4.1, tvOS 15.4.1, and watchOS 8.5.1. The update patches two vulnerabilities about which the advisory states that Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited for both vulnerabilitie...

How does macOS protect against malware?

Mac users often are told that "Macs don't get viruses." This is not really true, of course. Macs can and do get infected. However, it is true that macOS provides some basic protection against malware. This protection can be quite effective in some ways, but, unfortunately, quite ineffective in...

How to solve the Malwarebytes CrackMe: a step-by-step tutorial

The topic of this post is a Malwarebytes CrackMe—an exercise in malware analysis that I recently created. First, the challenge was created to serve internal purposes, but then it was released to the community on Twitter and triggered a lot of positive response. Thanks to all of you who sent in yo...

Steer clear of Bitcoin Cash generators

Here’s an interesting evolution on a well-worn scam, taking one profit generating fakeout and turning it into something else entirely. For years, gamers have been stuck navigating the treacherous waters of fake video game giveaways. With so many actual genuine gaming giveaways around, you’re neve...

Hi, honey. It’s mom. My phone is acting funny again.

Whether it’s setting up access to a Netflix account on a smart TV or enabling personal email on an iPhone, some people—of all ages—have a hard time figuring out user-friendly technology. However, often times it's older generations that have to turn to their progeny for everything from uploading...

Simple Authentication and Security Layer (SASL) vulnerabilities

Simple Authentication and Security Layer SASL is an authentication layer used in Internet protocols. SASL is not a protocol, but rather a framework that provides developers of applications and shared libraries with mechanisms for authentication, data integrity–checking, and encryption. Within the...

Microsoft fixes seven zero-days, including two PuzzleMaker targets, Google fixes serious Android flaw

This patch Tuesday harvest was another big one. The Windows updates alone included seven zero-day vulnerability updates, two of them are actively being used in the wild by a group called PuzzleMaker, four others that have also been seen in the wild, plus one other zero-day vulnerability not known...

TinyCheck: Stalkerware detection that doesn’t leave a trace

In 2019, when Malwarebytes helped found the Coalition Against Stalkerware, which brings together cybersecurity vendors and nonprofits to detect and raise awareness about stalkerware, we encountered a significant roadblock in our fight: For some users, the very detection of these potentially...

A week in security (September 24 – 30)

Last week on Labs was a busy one. We discussed how SMS phishing attacks target the job market, issued a warning for TV Licensing phishes, commented on how Apple confused Safari users with recent changes to how OSX handles browser extensions, and elaborated on holes found in Mojave’s privacy...

2022's most routinely exploited vulnerabilities—history repeats

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA, National Security Agency NSA, Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI, and international partners have released a joint Cybersecurity Advisory CSA called the 2022 Top Routinely Exploited Vulnerabilities. We went over the list and it felt like...

Update now! October patch Tuesday fixes actively used zero-day...but not the one you expected

Microsoft fixed 84 vulnerabilities in its October 2022 Patch Tuesday updates. Thirteen of them received the classification 'Critical'. Among them are a zero-day vulnerability that's being actively exploited, and another that hasnt been spotted in the wild yet. The bad news is that the much-desire...

Ransomware turncoat leaks Conti data, lifts the lid on the ransomware business

Last week, The Record broke the news that a self-described "pen tester" for the infamous Conti ransomware gang, who goes by the handle m1Geelka, had leaked manuals, technical guides, and software on the underground forum XSS. According to the screenshot of m1Geelkas original forum post—and...

RDP brute force attacks explained

While you read these words, the chances are that somebody, somewhere, is trying to break in to your computer by guessing your password. If your computer is connected to the Internet it can be found, quickly, and if it can be found, somebody will try to break in. And it isnt like the movies. The...

Steam users: Don’t fall for the “I accidentally reported you” scam

Suppose that, out of the blue, a Steam user tells you theyve accidentally reported you for something you didn’t do, like making an illegal purchase, and that your Steam account is going to be suspended. They ask you to message a Steam admin, whose profile they kindly provide, to help you sort out...

Update now! Two critical flaws in Git's code found, patched

In a sponsored security source code audit, security experts from X41 D-SEC GmbH Eric Sesterhenn and Markus Vervier and GitLab Joern Schneeweisz found two notable critical flaws in Git's code. A vulnerability on Git could generally compromise source code repositories and developer systems, but...

Oracle releases massive Critical Patch Update containing 520 security patches

Oracle has issued a Critical Patch Update which contains 520 new security patches across various product families. A few of these updates may need your urgent attention if you are a user of the affected product. Publicly disclosed computer security flaws are listed in the Common Vulnerabilities a...

The Hidden Bee infection chain, part 1: the stegano pack

About a year ago, we described the Hidden Bee miner delivered by the Underminer Exploit Kit. Hidden Bee has a complex and multi-layered internal structure that is unusual among cybercrime toolkits, making it an interesting phenomenon on the threat landscape. That's why we're dedicating a series o...

Key considerations for building vs. buying identity access management solutions

Time and time again, organizations learn the hard way that no matter which security solutions they have in place, if they haven’t properly secured the end user, their efforts can be easily rendered moot. The classic slip-up most often associated with end-user-turned-insider-threat is falling for ...