US airline industry quietly selling flight data to DHS

A data broker owned by some of America's biggest airlines has been selling access to customer flight data to the US Department of Homeland Security DHS. The data, compiled by data broker Airlines Reporting Corporation ARC, includes names, flight itineraries, and financial details. It also covers...

Did DOGE “breach” Americans’ data? (Lock and Code S06E08)

This week on the Lock and Code podcast … If you don't know about the newly created US Department of Government Efficiency DOGE, there's a strong chance they already know about you. Created on January 20 by US President Donald Trump through Executive Order, DOGE's broad mandate is “modernizing...

Why we’re no longer doing April Fools’ Day

The internet is filled with falsehoods. We’re forever investigating new scams here at Malwarebytes, and so we get how hard it is to know what—or who—to trust online. There’s the scam that takes advantage of grieving people and tricks them into paying for a funeral live stream. There’s the fake...

Vulnerability in most browsers abused in targeted attacks

Researchers found a vulnerability in Chrome that was abused in the wild against organizations in Russia. Google has released an update for its Chrome browser which includes patches for this vulnerability. The update brings the Stable channel to versions 134.0.6998.178 for Windows. Other operating...

Android devices track you before you even sign in

Google is spying on Android users, starting from even before they have logged in to their Google account. That's what researchers from Dublin’s Trinity College found after they conducted a measurement study to investigate the cookies, identifiers and other data stored on Android devices by Google...

‘Poseidon’ Mac stealer distributed via Google ads

On June 24, we observed a new campaign distributing a stealer targeting Mac users via malicious Google ads for the Arc browser. This is the second time in the past couple of months where we see Arc being used as a lure, certainly a sign of its popularity. It was previously used to drop a Windows...

How to turn off location tracking on Android

Android devices come with location services. Some apps need access to location services to function properly. However, there may be reasons why you don’t want your device to be located, often because you don’t want to be found and the device is always with you. Depending on who you are trying to...

A week in security (May 20 – May 26)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: How AI will change your credit card behind the scenes Criminal record database of millions of Americans dumped online Microsoft AI "Recall" feature records everything, secures far less How to remove a user from a shared Android device How to remove a user from a...

Dell notifies customers about data breach

Dell is warning its customers about a data breach after a cybercriminal offered a 49 million-record database of information about Dell customers on a cybercrime forum. A cybercriminal called Menelik posted the following message on the “Breach Forums” site: “The data includes 49 million customer a...

How to back up your iPhone to a Mac

They say the only backup you ever regret is the one you didnt make. iPhone backups can be used to easily move your apps and data to a new phone, to recover things youve lost, or to fix things that have failed. One of the most cost effective ways to backup your iPhone is to save backups to your Ma...

Data brokers admit they’re selling information on precise location, kids, and reproductive healthcare

Information newly made available under California law has shed light on data broker practices, including exactly what categories of information they trade in. Any business that meets the definition of data broker must register with the California Privacy Protection Agency CPPA annually. The CPPA...

Ransomware review: February 2024

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...

Windows 10 gets its own extended security updates program

The day that Windows 10 machines will get their last security updates is set for October 14, 2025. So if you want to stay secure, you’d have to upgrade to a newer version. Either to Windows 11, which is not all that different, but more demanding when it comes to system requirements. Or to the...

Meta sued over forcing users to pay to stop tracking

Meta is required to get users’ consent in Europe in order to show them targeted ads. For this reason, Meta has to provide European users with a way to opt out of behavioral advertising or face fines totalling $100,000 a day. Behavioral advertising are ads tailored to someone’s browsing habits and...

Nothing Chats pulled from Google Play

Sometimes it’s all in the name. The Nothing Chats beta has been pulled from the Google Play Store after reports that the company behind it has access to your unencrypted messages. Nothing Phone 2 owners were promised a first-of-its-kind app developed in partnership with Sunbird, which allowed the...

TikTok flooded with fake celebrity nude photo Temu referrals

Sites and apps frequently gamify their products and experiences to grow their user base. Its a relatively easy way to have their customers become more involved thanks to whatever incentives may be on offer. A game here, a rewards program there, and everyone is happy. Well, almost everyone. If...

A history of ransomware: How did it get this far?

Today's ransomware is the scourge of many organizations. But where did it start? If we define ransomware as malware that encrypts files to extort the owner of the system, then the first malware that could be classified as ransomware is the 1989 AIDS Trojan. However, while it encrypted filenames a...

DarkGate reloaded via malvertising and SEO poisoning campaigns

In July 2023, we observed a malvertising campaign that lured potential victims to a fraudulent site for a Windows IT management tool. Unlike previous similar attacks, the final payload was packaged differently and not immediately recognizable. The decoy file came as an MSI installer containing an...

Catching up with WoofLocker, the most elaborate traffic redirection scheme to tech support scams

Back in January 2020, we blogged about a tech support scam campaign dubbed WoofLocker that was by far using the most complex traffic redirection scheme we had ever seen. In fact, the threat actor had started deploying infrastructure in earnest as early as 2017, about 3 years prior to our...

New Security Advisor amps up security in minutes

Malwarebytes Security Advisor, a transformation of the Nebula customer experience, enables organizations to visualize and improve their organization's security posture in just a few minutes. "If youre not fully configured, you arent fully protected," says Jonny Rivera, Director, Customer Experien...

Public companies must now disclose breaches within 4 days

Public organisations in the US impacted by a cyberattack will now have to disclose it within four days…with some caveats attached. On Wednesday, new rules were approved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission SEC. These rules mean that publicly traded companies will need to reveal said attac...

How Apple fixed what Microsoft hasn't, with Thomas Reed: Lock and Code S04E16

Earlier this month, a group of hackers was spotted using a set of malicious tools--that originally gained popularity with online video game cheaters--to hide their Windows-based malware from being detected. Sounds unique, right? Frustratingly, it isn't, as the specific security loophole that was...

OpenSSH trojan campaign targets Linux systems and IoT devices

Poorly configured Linux and Internet of Things IoT devices are at risk of compromise from a cryptojacking campaign, according to researchers at Microsoft. The attacks, which involve brute forcing a way into a system, are designed to profit from mining in illicit fashion for cryptocurrency. Once t...

Play ransomware gang compromises Spanish bank, threatens to leak files

Ransomware is creating additional work for a major Spanish bank. Globalcaja, said to have more than 300 offices in Spain and close to half a million customers, has fallen victim to the Play ransomware gang. The gang claim to have swiped both private and personal information in the attack--includi...

Trusting AI not to lie: The cost of truth: Lock and Code S04E12

In May, a lawyer who was defending their client in a lawsuit against Columbia's biggest airline, Avianca, submitted a legal filing before a court in Manhattan, New York, that listed several previous cases as support for their main argument to continue the lawsuit. But when the court reviewed the...

World Password Day must die

The continued existence of World Password Day is a tell that something has gone badly wrong in cybersecurity. Now in its tenth year, the day is supposed to act as an annual reminder for people to follow good password hygiene: Dont reuse passwords; use long passwords; no, longer passwords than tha...

Google takes CryptBot to the wood shed

Google is in the midst of a legal campaign designed to take down the creators of a very persistent piece of malware called CryptBot. This malware, which Google claims compromised roughly 670k computers, set about infecting users of the Chrome browser. Unfortunately for the malware campaign...

Adult content malvertising scheme leads to clickjacking

Malwarebytes researchers have found a malvertising scheme that leads to clickjacking. Clickjacking is a form of ad fraud which is also referred to as click fraud or click spam. It is a practice performed by certain dubious advertising networks, where they sometimes use automated programs--from...

QBot changes tactic, remains a menace to business networks

QBot, an infostealer-turned-dropper that aids criminal gangs in their malicious campaigns, is now being distributed as part of a phishing campaign using PDFs and Windows Script Files WSF, according to recent discoveries by malware hunter Proxylife @pr0xylife and the Cryptolaemus group...

A week in security (February 20 - 26)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: GoAnywhere zero-day opened door to Clop ransomware Chip company loses $250m after ransomware hits supply chain GoDaddy says it's a victim of multi-year cyberattack campaign Twitter and two-factor authentication: What's changing? How to set up two-factor...

Samsung adds Message Guard protection against zero-click exploits

Samsung has announced the introduction of Message Guard for the Samsung Galaxy S23 series. It will be gradually rolled out to other Galaxy smartphones and tablets later this year. Message Guard works on images received in messages by the apps "Samsung Messages" and "Messages by Google" and...

TikTok car theft challenge: Hyundai, Kia fix flaw

Car manufacturer Hyundai, and its subsidiary Kia, began rolling out a free software update on February 14, 2023, to address a flaw in their anti-theft software, which was highlighted in a social media challenge. The release of the update came nine months after an uptick in car theft of the affect...

Credit card fraud group member could get up to 30 years in jail

Card fraud, a staple diet of scammers online, is currently featuring heavily on the US Department of Justice portal. The reason? A story which has rumbled on for a few years finally seems to be pulling into its final destination, as a man admits his role in a slice of fraud which impacted thousan...

5 must-haves for K-12 cybersecurity

Over the years, cyberattacks on K-12 schools and districts have steadily increased, and in 2022 that trend only continued. In the first half of 2022 alone, the education sector saw an average of almost 2,000 attacks every week--a 114% increase compared to two years ago. The tight budgets of many...

Polite WiFi loophole could allow attackers to drain device batteries

Researchers at the University of Waterloo in Ontario have further researched a loophole in the WiFi protocol that was dubbed "polite WiFi". Last year the researchers published a study in which they showed someone could use this loophole to triangulate the location of any WiFi enabled device. Now,...

The pitfalls of blocking IP addresses

In August 2022, the Austrian court ordered the block of 11 IP addresses for copyright violations on 14 websites. Sadly, there was an undesirable side-effect--thousands of websites were rendered inaccessible to internet users in Austria for two days. There are many possible reasons why governments...

Restaurant platform SevenRooms confirms data breach

SevenRooms, a "guest experience and retention platform" for food establishments and hospitality organisations, has confirmed it has fallen victim to a third party vendor data breach. Mostly known for its customer management platform, Seven Rooms' breach came to light after stolen data was seen fo...

Ho, ho, no! Scams to avoid this festive season

Whether youve been naughty or nice, someone will try and stuff a scam down your chimney either way. The FBI is warning of several likely ways to be parted from your funds or logins, and were going to give some additional context along with tips to avoid these digital lumps of coal. Social media...

SIM swapper jailed for 18 months over crypto heist

Nicholas Truglia 25 from Florida was sentenced to 18 months on Thursday for his involvement in a digital heist that cost Michael Terpin @michaelterpin, a renowned personality in the cryptocurrency space, $23.8M. The theft happened on January 2018, where Truglia and his co-conspirators targeted...

Security advisories are falling short. Here's why, with Dustin Childs: Lock and Code S03E25

Decades ago, patching was, to lean into a corny joke, a bit patchy. In the late 90s, the Microsoft operating system OS Windows 98 had a supportive piece of software that would find security patches for the OS so that users could then download those patches and deploy them to their computers. That...

A week in security (October 24 - 30)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Lock and Code: A gym heist in London goes cyber Healthcare site leaks personal health information via Google and Meta tracking pixels An odd kind of cybercrime: Gift vouchers, medical records, and...food Cisco warns of ISE vulnerability with no fixed release or...

Malformed signature trick can bypass Mark of the Web

Mark of the Web MOTW--the technology that ensures Windows pops a warning message when trying to open a file downloaded from the Internet--is back in the news, but unfortunately not in a good way. Bleeping Computer reports that a recently uncovered but somewhat old bug has been unearthed which hel...

Microsoft breach reveals some customer data

Microsoft customers find themselves in the middle of a data breach situation. The Microsoft Security Response Center blog reports that researchers reported a misconfigured Microsoft endpoint on September 24. This miscongifuration resulted in the possibility of "unauthenticated access to some...

Bogus job offers hide trojanised open-source software

Microsoft researchers are warning of fake job offers where the only actual compensation available is a golden handshake of malware and trickery. The campaign targets those with technical know-how because, despite what some may think, scams are for everybody, not just people unfamiliar with tech...

Medtronic's MiniMed 600 series insulin pumps potentially at risk of compromise, says FDA

The US FDA Food and Drug Administration has warned users of Medtronic's MiniMed 600 Series Insulin Pump System--specifically, models for MiniMed 630G and MiniMed 670G--that their medical devices have a cybersecurity issue with its communication protocol. If compromised, attackers could gain...

Welcome to high tech hacking in 2022: Annoying users until they say "yes"

Last week we learned that ride-sharing giant Uber's defences had been unpicked by an attacker with a novel take on social engineering: Fatigue. Fatigue attacks play on the often repetitive nature of certain security procedures and failsafes. Do you hate having to punch in a password on your login...

3 ways MDR can drive business growth for MSPs

The managed service provider market is growing rapidly. As cyberattacks continue to increase worldwide, more and more small-and-medium-sized businesses SMBs are looking to MSPs to take the load off when it comes to securing their business. With more business, of course, comes more competition--an...

Cyber threat hunting for SMBs: How MDR can help

When you hear the words "cyber threat hunting", you just may picture an elite team of security professionals scouring your systems for malware. Sounds like something only huge businesses or nation states would need to do, right? Not quite. Threat hunting is just as essential for...

How IT teams can prevent phishing attacks with Malwarebytes DNS filtering

Phishing attacks are a persistent threat to businesses globally. According to Verizon, 82 percent of data breaches in 2021 involved the human element--with phishing attacks making up over 60 precent of these. And if it aint broke, dont fix it: threat actors have only continued to use phishing to...

Summer of exploitation leads to healthcare under fire

May 2021 was a tough month for the Healthcare and Medical sector-the most notable threat trend at the time was the heavy use of a new popular exploit against Dell systems, leading to immense effort by attackers to utilize the exploit before it became less effective due to patching. During this...