Fake system update drops Aurora stealer via Invalid Printer loader

Malvertising seems to be enjoying a renaissance as of late, whether it is from ads on search engine results pages or via popular websites. Because browsers are more secure today than they were 5 or 10 years ago, the attacks that we are seeing all involve some form of social engineering. A threat...

Ransomware attack on MSI led to compromised Intel Boot Guard private keys

On April 7, 2023 MSI Micro-Star International released a statement confirming a cyberattack on part of its information systems. While the statement does not reveal a lot of tangible information, this snippet is important: "MSI urges users to obtain firmware/BIOS updates only from its official...

A week in security (April 17 - 23)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Fake Chrome updates spread malware Woman tracks down and turns table on Airbnb scammer Update Chrome now! Google patches actively exploited flaw Beware: Fake IRS tax email wants your Microsoft account Ransomware in Germany, April 2022 - March 2023 Living Off the La...

BreachForums to be shut down after all for fear of law enforcement infiltration

On March 15, 2023 US law enforcement arrested a man from New York who was accused of being the administrator of BreachForums, a well-known and probably the largest Dark Web marketplace for stolen data to be leaked and sold. At first, a new administrator rose to the occasion and said they were...

A look at a Magecart skimmer using the Hunter obfuscator

Threat actors are notorious for trying to hide their code in various ways, from binary packers to obfuscators. On their own, these tools are not always malicious as they can also be be used by companies or individuals who wish to keep their work safe from piracy, but overall they tend to be large...

Hackers threaten to leak STALKER 2 assets if devs don’t heed demands

Ukrainian game developer GSC Game World has announced it was breached by Russian hacktivists who stole assets related to the much-awaited game STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl. A message from GSC Game World team pic.twitter.com/rqRM0tFZmO -- S.T.A.L.K.E.R. OFFICIAL @stalkerthegame March 12, 2023...

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...

GoDaddy says it's a victim of multi-year cyberattack campaign

Hosting and domain name company GoDaddy says it believes a "sophisticated threat actor group" has been subjecting the company to a multi-year attack campaign, the most recent of which occurred in December 2022. In December, it received complaints about customer websites being periodically...

Hive! Hive! Hive! Ransomware site submerged by FBI

On January 26, 2023, the United States Department of Justice DoJ released details about a disruption campaign against the Hive ransomware group. The disruption campaign has reportedly had access to Hive's infrastructure since July of 2022. Its access became public on Thursday when Hive's dark web...

Ransomware revenue significantly down over 2022

According to blockchain data platform Chainalysis, ransomware revenue "plummeted" from $765.6 in 2021 to at least $456.8 in 2022. The data is based on an analysis of the cryptocurrency addresses known to be controlled by ransomware attackers. Precision While the real numbers are likely much highe...

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,...

Pokemon NFT card game malware chooses you

Pokemon fans are urged to be on their guard after bogus card game portals have been offering up malware under the guise of NFTs. The sites in question offer up an enticing looking mix of card gaming with a splash of money making on the side. Digital card games are big business in gaming circles,...

Okta breached last month, no customers compromised

Some of Oktas source code fell into the hands of an unauthorized party. The code was stolen from GitHub in the first part of December, according to a statement issued by the company. In the same statement the company reassured users that there was no impact to any customers. Okta Okta is an acces...

Lego's Bricklink steps on cross site scripting blocks

If you build it, they will come. In Legos case, they built it and certain security flaws meant someone could have taken it all apart. PCMag reports that flaws in Legos Bricklink service meant that it was open to potential data leakage or even account hijacking. Those flaws, now addressed,...

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...

LinkedIn introduces new security features to combat fake accounts

LinkedIn knows it has a problem with bots and fake accounts, and has acknowledged this on more than one occasion. For years, it has been aware of spam, fake job offers, phishing, fraudulent investments, and at times malware, and has been trying to combat those issues. In 2018, LinkedIn rolled out...

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...

Only half of teens agree they "feel supported online" by parents

Not enough children and teenagers trust their parents to support them online, and not enough parents know exactly how to give the support their children need. Those are some of the latest findings from joint research conducted this summer by Malwarebytes and 1Password, which we have published tod...

White House unveils Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights

On Tuesday, the Biden-Harris Administration's Office of Science and Technology Policy OSTP unveiled a new Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, which lists five principles to guide the design, use, and development of intelligence-based automated systems "to protect the American public in the age of...

TikTok's "secret operation" tracks you even if you don't use it

Consumer Reports CR, a US-based nonprofit consumer organization, has revealed that TikTok gathers data on people who don't even use the app itself. If this sounds familiar, it's because it's happened before. Meta's near-omnipresence wherever you are online enabled it to gather data on users, even...

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...

Tax refund phish logs keystrokes to swipe personal details

Theres been some smart phishing campaigns running over the last few weeks, and this one is particularly sneaky. Bleeping Computer reports that a phishing page is targeting Greek taxpayers with a tax refund scam. The added sting in the tail comes in the form of an embedded keylogger which grabs...

A week in security (September 12 – 18)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: The North Face hit by credential stuffing attack Facebook engineers aren't sure where all user data is kept 6 patch management best practices for businesses The MSP playbook on deciphering tech promises and shaping security culture Apple puts the password on life...

Here are the new security and privacy features of iOS 16

On Monday, September 12, Apple released iOS 16, which included a host of new security and privacy features. Let's look at what these are--and some quality-of-life QoL changes. Lockdown Mode As Macrumors calls it, Lockdown Mode is an "extreme" security setting ideal for those who regularly find...

How to set up an iPhone for your kids

Thanks to Thomas Reed for his expertise and guidance. This is it. After much hemming and hawing, you've finally given in and bought your child their first smartphone, which you plan to give to them before the school year starts. But before you give it to them, it's worth sitting them down to talk...

Ransomwater confusion, does the criminal know who the victim is?

When we say that attribution is always tricky, we are obviously only seeing the half of it. Apparently sometimes even the cybercriminals are not always clear on which company they breached. Clop ransomware put out a statement that they breached Thames Water when in reality their victim was South...

A week in security (August 8 - August 14)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: KMSpico explained: No, KMS is not "kill Microsoft" Twitter data breach affects 5.4M users Can your EDR handle a ransomware attack? 6-point checklist for an anti-ransomware EDR Twilio breached after social engineering attack on employees Summer of exploitation leads...

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...

Bank fraud scammers trick victims with claims of bogus Zelle transfers

It pays to be careful where cold calls from someone claiming to work for your bank are concerned. Scam callers are impersonating bank staff, with suggestions of dubious payments made to your account. One unfortunate individual has already lost around $1,000 to this slice of telephone-banking base...

How to protect yourself and your kids against device theft

In no time at all, kids will be going back to school or starting college. And while gearing up for this, it’s very important to be aware of the threat from device loss in the school environment. Maybe you are away at university for the first time and have a new place to live, or maybe your kids...

Criminals using compromised social media accounts to “post indecent images of children” says UK cybercrime organization

Action Fraud, the UKs national reporting center for fraud and cybercrime, is warning of a very disturbing scam involving social media and "indecent images of children." Details are light, but social media fans should take this as a warning to lock down their accounts immediately. Criminals are...

Fraudulent cryptocurrency investment apps are duping investors

Together with the Department of Homeland Security DHS and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA, the FBI has released a warning about cybercriminals creating fraudulent cryptocurrency investment apps in order to defraud cryptocurrency investors. The threat actors convince...

Microsoft appears to be rolling back Office Macro blocking

Were seeing several reports indicating that Microsoft may have rolled back its decision to block Macros in Office. Currently no official statement exists—the reports rely on a post by a Microsoft employee in the replies of the original article where the plan to block macros was announced. Earlier...

Immigration organisations targeted by APT group Evilnum

Organisations working in the immigration sector are advised to be on high alert for Advanced Persistent Threat APT attacks. Bleeping Computer reports that European organisations, specifically, are under threat from the Evilnum hacking group. Evilnum, on the APT scene since 2018 at the earliest an...

Conti ransomware group’s pulse stops, but did it fake its own death?

The dark web leak site used by the notorious Conti ransomware gang has disappeared, along with the chat function it used to negotiate ransoms with victims. For as long as this infrastructure is down the group is unable to operate and a significent threat is removed from the pantheon of ransomware...

DDoS-for-hire service provider jailed

Matthew Gatrel, a 33-year-old man from St. Charles, Illinois, has been sentenced to two years in prison for running websites that provide powerful distributed denial-of-service DDoS attacks against internet users and websites. This sentencing resulted in the seizure of his websites, making the...

Stealthy Symbiote Linux malware is after financial institutions

Symbiote, a new "nearly impossible to detect" Linux malware, targeted financial sectors in Latin America—and the threat actors behind it might have links to Brazil. These findings were revealed in a recent report, a joint effort between the Blackberry Research Team and Dr. Joakim Kennedy, a...

SSNDOB stolen data marketplace shut down by global law enforcement operation

The United States Department of Justice has announced a major takedown of a criminal marketplace that traded Personally Identifiable Information PII. Not just any old marketplace; this was a major, years-long operation with several failsafes to prevent permanent takedown. It took quite the...

Coffee app in hot water for constant tracking of user location

A mobile app violated Canadas privacy laws via some pretty significant overreach with its tracking of device owners. The violation will apparently not bring the app owners, Tim Hortons, any form of punishment. However, the fallout from this incident may hopefully serve as a warning to others with...

Microsoft Autopatch is here…but can you use it?

Updating endpoints on a network can be a daunting task. Testing before rollout can take time. Delays to patches going live can cause all manner of headaches. Windows Autopatch aims to tackle some of these issues, and is now live for public preview. The release comes with a few caveats which youll...

FBI warns of education sector credentials on dark web forums

The FBI is warning academics to be on their guard, as an embattled education sector continues to experience attacks and breaches, with data spilling onto the so-called dark web. The government agencys Private Industry Notification PDF cites US academic credentials up for grabs from a variety of...

“Look what I found here” phish targets Facebook users

Facebook-themed messages are a frequent source of bogus links from both spam and compromised accounts. Whether you receive the messages via SMS, the Messenger app, or just inside regular web chat, it pays to be careful. A wide variety of attacks use bogus messages as their launchpad, and the risk...

A week in security (May 9 – 15)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: How to spot the signs of a virtual kidnap scam Virtual credit cards coming to Chrome: What you need to know Clearview AI banned from selling facial recognition data in the US Cyberattacks on SATCOM networks attributed to Russian threat actors F5 BIG-IP vulnerabilit...

OpenSea warns of Discord channel compromise

OpenSea, the primary marketplace for buyers and sellers of non-fungible tokens NFTs, has reported major problems with its Discord support channel. How major? Well, theres a "potential vulnerability" which allowed spambots to post phishing links to other users. A problem that lead OpenSea Support ...

Over 50 countries sign the “Declaration for the Future of the Internet”

Governments of the US, EU member states, and 32 other countries have announced the launch of the "Declaration for the Future of the Internet," a "political commitment" among endorsers "to advance a positive vision for the internet and digital technologies." "We are united by a belief in the...

Facebook phishers threaten users with Page Recovery Help Support

We’ve seen multiple hijacked profiles on Facebook recently claiming to be account recovery services. These bogus account recovery services arent here to help. Theyre actually just trying to scare users into falling for phishing attempts. The people behind these scams target Facebook pages belongi...

Emotet fixes bug in code, resumes spam campaign

Emotet threat actors resumed their email spam campaign on Monday after stopping it late last week to fix a bug. The bug—a flaw in how Emotet is installed onto a system after a victim opens a malicious email attachment—forced the actors to prematurely halt their campaign. Sample email of an Emotet...

A week in security (April 11 – 17)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Credential-stealing malware disguises itself as Telegram, targets social media users Old Play Store apps served notice by upcoming API level changes Denonia cryptominer is first malware to target AWS Lambda Ransomware: March 2022 review Why identity management...

SMS group spam promises free gifts in return for bill payment

We’re seeing lots of examples of peculiar SMS messages sent to random groups of people. Most of these messages promise free gifts and/or offers after having paid bills. Nobody has asked for these texts, and they’re not being sent by providers of any services. What’s going on? The set up Most of t...

White House urges US businesses: Protect against potential Russian cyberattacks

On Monday, the White House told US business leaders to toughen up their cybersecurity defenses against a potential cyberattack from Russia. "The Biden-Harris Administration has warned repeatedly about the potential for Russia to engage in malicious cyber activity against the United States in...