One click on this fake Google Meet update can give attackers control of your PC

A phishing page disguised as a Google Meet update notice is silently handing victims’ Windows computers to an attacker-controlled management server. No password is stolen, no files are downloaded, and there are no obvious red flags. It just takes a single click on a convincing Google Meet fake...

Betterment data breach might be worse than we thought

Betterment LLC is an investment advisor registered with US Securities and Exchange Commission SEC. The company disclosed a January 2026 incident in which an attacker used social engineering to access a third‑party platform used for customer communications, then abused it to send crypto‑themed...

Apple patches zero-day flaw that could let attackers take control of devices

Apple has released security updates for iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple Watches, Apple TVs, and Safari, fixing, in particular, a zero-day flaw that is actively exploited in targeted attacks. Exploiting this zero-day flaw would allow cybercriminals to run any code they want on the affected device,...

AI chat app leak exposes 300 million messages tied to 25 million users

An independent security researcher uncovered a major data breach affecting Chat & Ask AI, one of the most popular AI chat apps on Google Play and Apple App Store, with more than 50 million users. The researcher claims to have accessed 300 million messages from over 25 million users due to an...

Flock cameras shared license plate data without permission

Mountain View, California, pulled the plug on its entire license plate reader camera network this week. It discovered that Flock Safety, which ran the system, had been sharing city data with hundreds of law enforcement agencies, including federal ones, without permission. Flock Safety runs an...

Received an Instagram password reset email? Here’s what you need to know

Last week, many Instagram users began receiving unsolicited emails from the platform that warned about a password reset request. The message said: “Hi username, We got a request to reset your Instagram password. If you ignore this message, your password will not be changed. If you didn’t request ...

Chrome extension slurps up AI chats after users installed it for privacy

This case highlights a growing grey area in consumer privacy: data collection that is technically disclosed, but so far outside user expectations that most people would never knowingly agree to it. The next time you tell an AI chat assistant your deepest secrets, think twice; you never know who o...

Google ads funnel Mac users to poisoned AI chats that spread the AMOS infostealer

Researchers have found evidence that AI conversations were inserted in Google search results to mislead macOS users into installing the Atomic macOS Stealer AMOS. Both Grok and ChatGPT were found to have been abused in these attacks. Forensic investigation of an AMOS alert showed the infection...

December Patch Tuesday fixes three zero-days, including one that hijacks Windows devices

These updates from Microsoft fix serious security issues, including three that attackers are already exploiting to take control of Windows systems. In total, the security update resolves 57 Microsoft security vulnerabilities. Microsoft isn't releasing new features for Windows 10 anymore, so Windo...

New ClickFix wave infects users with hidden malware in images and fake Windows updates

Several researchers have flagged a new development in the ongoing ClickFix campaign: Attackers are now mimicking a Windows update screen to trick people into running malware. ClickFix campaigns use convincing lures, historically “Human Verification” screens, and now a fake “Windows Update” splash...

Matrix Push C2 abuses browser notifications to deliver phishing and malware

Cybercriminals are using browser push notifications to deliver malware and phishing attacks. Researchers at BlackFog described how a new command-and-control platform, called Matrix Push C2, uses browser push notifications to reach potential victims. When we warned back in 2019 that browser push...

Ransomware gang claims Conduent breach: what you should watch for next [updated]

Update – October 30, 2025: New information confirms that Conduent’s 2024 breach has impacted over 10.5 million people, based on notifications filed with multiple state attorneys general. The largest disclosure came from the Oregon government, which reported a total of 10.5 million affected US...

A week in security (October 20 – October 26)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Is AI moving faster than its safety net? Thousands of online stores at risk as SessionReaper attacks spread Apple may have to open its walled garden to outside app stores Meta boosts scam protection on WhatsApp and Messenger Home Depot Halloween phish gives users a...

Beware of Zelle transfer scams

As we have said many times before, falling for a scam can happen to the best of us. And it can ruin lives. In our podcast How a scam hunter got scammed, scam hunter Julie-Anne Kearns talked about how she had been duped by people pretending to be from HMRC, which is the UK’s version of the US...

Jailbroken AIs are helping cybercriminals to hone their craft

Cybercriminals are bypassing the guardrails that are supposed to keep AI models from carrying out criminal activities, according to researchers. We've seen the misuse of AI models by cybercriminals growing rapidly over the past several years, shaping a new era of digital threats. Early on,...

Fake bank ads on Instagram scam victims out of money

Ads on Instagram—including deepfake videos—are impersonating trusted financial institutions like Bank of Montreal BMO and EQ Bank Equitable Bank in order to scam people, according to BleepingComputer. There are some variations in how the scammers approach this. Some use Artificial Intelligence AI...

A week in security (June 1 – June 7)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: What does Facebook know about me? Lock and Code S06E11 Victims risk AsyncRAT infection after being redirected to fake Booking.com sites Juice jacking warnings are back, with a new twist The North Face warns customers about potentially stolen data Scammers are...

What does Facebook know about me? (Lock and Code S06E11)

This week on the Lock and Code podcast … There's an easy way to find out what Facebook knows about you—you just have to ask. In 2020, the social media giant launched an online portal that allows all users to access their historical data and to request specific types of information for download...

“Your privacy is a promise we don’t break”: Dating app Raw exposes sensitive user data

Any app that hands over user data is a concern, but leaky dating apps are especially worrying given the sensitivity of the data involved. A relatively new app called Raw that aims to rewrite the rules of dating is the latest to trip over its coattails by exposing user data to…well, anyone who ask...

The AI chatbot cop squad is here (Lock and Code S06E09)

This week on the Lock and Code podcast … “Heidi” is a 36-year-old, San Francisco-born, divorced activist who is lonely, outspoken, and active on social media. “Jason” is a shy, bilingual teenager whose parents immigrated from Ecuador who likes anime, gaming, comic books, and hiking. Neither of th...

On world password day, Microsoft says fewer passwords, more passkeys

And we agree. If there is a cybersecurity themed day that we would like to get rid as soon as possible it’s world password day. Sorry, old friend, but you’re outdated, and it looks like your days are numbered. Let's switch to passkeys. To quote Microsoft: “As the world shifts from passwords to...

AMOS and Lumma stealers actively spread to Reddit users

We were alerted to Mac and Windows stealers currently distributed via Reddit posts targeting users engaging in cryptocurrency trading. One of the common lures is a cracked software version of the popular trading platform TradingView. The crooks are posting links to both Windows and Mac installers...

PlugX malware deleted from thousands of systems by FBI

The FBI says it has removed PlugX malware from thousands of infected computers worldwide. The move came after suspicion that cybercriminals groups under control of the People’s Republic of China PRC used a version of PlugX malware to control, and steal information from victims' computers. PlugX h...

Temu must respect consumer protection laws, says EU

Temu has been accused of a number of infringements on its platform against European Union EU consumer law. The Consumer Protection Cooperation CPC Network of national consumer authorities and the European Commission teamed up for a coordinated ongoing investigation into Temu and its practices. Th...

Internet Archive suffers data breach and DDoS

A non-profit that benefits millions of people has fallen victim to a data breach and a DDoS attack. Internet Archive, most known for its Wayback Machine, is a digital library that allows users to look at website snapshots from the past. It is often used for academic research and data analysis...

AI girlfriend site breached, user fantasies stolen [updated]

A hacker has stolen a massive database of users’ interactions with their sexual partner chatbots, according to 404 Media. The breached service, Muah.ai, describes itself as a platform that lets people engage in AI-powered companion NSFW chat, exchange photos, and even have voice chats. As you can...

Millions of Kia vehicles were vulnerable to remote attacks with just a license plate number

In June of 2024 security researchers uncovered a set of vulnerabilities in the Kia dealer portal that allowed them to remotely take over any Kia vehicle built after 2013—and all they needed was a license plate number. According to the researchers: "These attacks could be executed remotely on any...

Iranian cybercriminals are targeting WhatsApp users in spear phishing campaign

An Iranian state-sponsored group often referred to as Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps IRGC is making headlines again this season as Meta disclosed that the cybercriminals targeted WhatsApp users in Israel, Palestine, Iran, the UK, and the US. Other names for this group—depending on the...

Authy phone numbers accessed by cybercriminals, warns Twilio

Twilio has warned users of the Authy multi-factor authentication MFA app about an incident in which cybercriminals may have obtained their phone numbers. Twilio said the cybercriminals abused an unsecured Application Programming Interface API endpoint to verify the phone numbers of millions of...

TikTok facing fresh lawsuit in US over children’s privacy

The Federal Trade Commission FTC has announced its referred a complaint against TikTok and parent company ByteDance to the Department of Justice. The investigation originally focused on Musical.ly which was acquired by ByteDance on November 10, 2017, and merged it into TikTok. The FTC started a...

Microsoft Recall delayed after privacy and security concerns

Microsoft has announced it will postpone the broadly available preview of the heavily discussed Recall feature for Copilot+ PCs. Copilot+ PCs are personal computers that come equipped with several artificial intelligence AI features. The Recall feature tracks anything from web browsing to voice...

Microsoft Recall snapshots can be easily grabbed with TotalRecall tool

Microsofts Recall feature has been criticized heavily by pretty much everyone since it was announced last month. Now, researchers have demonstrated the risks by creating a tool that can find, extract, and display everything Recall has stored on a device. For those unaware, Recall is a feature...

DocGo patient health data stolen in cyberattack

Medical health care provider DocGo has disclosed in a form 8-K that it experienced a cybersecurity incident involving some of the company’s systems. As part of the investigation of the incident, the company says it has determined that the attacker accessed and acquired data, including certain...

New ransomware group demands Change Healthcare ransom

The Change Healthcare ransomware attack has taken a third cruel twist. A new ransomware group, RansomHub, has listed the organisation as a victim on its dark web leak site, saying it has 4 TB of "highly selective data," which relates to "all Change Health clients that have sensitive data being...

A week in security (March 18 – March 24)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: New Go loader pushes Rhadamanthys stealer Canada revisits decision to ban Flipper Zero Patch Ivanti Standalone Sentry and Ivanti Neurons for ITSM now 19 million plaintext passwords exposed by incorrectly configured Firebase instances Apex Legends Global Series...

FakeBat delivered via several active malvertising campaigns

February was a particularly busy month for search-based malvertising with the number of incidents we documented almost doubling. We saw similar payloads being dropped but also a few new ones that were particularly good at evading detection. One malware family we have been tracking on this blog is...

Going viral shouldn’t lead to bomb threats, with Leigh Honeywell: Lock and Code S05E06

This week on the Lock and Code podcast… A disappointing meal at a restaurant. An ugly breakup between two partners. A popular TV show that kills off a beloved, main character. In a perfect world, these are irritations and moments of vulnerability. But online today, these same events can sometimes...

Identity theft is number one threat for consumers, says report

The German Federal Office for Information Security BSI has published a report on The State of IT Security in Germany in 2023, and the number one threat for consumers is… identity theft. The thing is, you can protect your devices and your online privacy as much as possible, but what happens when...

How to tell if your toothbrush is being used in a DDoS attack

Its not...

Ring curtails law enforcement’s access to footage

US law enforcement will no longer be able to request footage through the Neighbors app produced by Ring video doorbells and surveillance cameras. Until now Ring’s Request for Assistance RFA function allowed law enforcement to ask for and obtain user footage, but this function will be retired. Alo...

AI likely to boost ransomware, warns government body

The British National Cyber Security Centre NCSC says it expects Artificial Intelligence AI to heighten the global ransomware threat. In a report, the NCSC makes the assessment that AI will almost certainly increase the volume and heighten the impact of cyberattacks over the next two years. We’re...

Microsoft got hacked by state sponsored group it was investigating

In a spy-vs-spy type of scenario, Microsoft has acknowledged that a group called Midnight Blizzard also known as APT29 or Cozy Bear, gained access to a Microsoft legacy non-production test tenant account. According to Microsoft, the group managed to access the account in November after subjecting...

A week in security (January 15 – January 21)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Google failing to scrub abortion access in location history, study claims Google changes wording for Incognito browsing in Chrome CISA urges urgent patching of two actively exploited Citrix NetScaler vulnerabilities Cybersecurity spend to soar in 2024: How companie...

Webinar recap: Ransomware gangs and Living Off The Land attacks (LOTL)

Discover the intersection of Ransomware-as-a-Service RaaS gangs and Living Off The Land LOTL attacks in our latest webinar, now available on-demand, led by cybersecurity experts Ian Thomas, Mark Stockley, and Bill Cozens. The webinar revealed how RaaS gangs use LOTL tactics, leveraging legitimate...

US government is snooping on people via phone push notifications, says senator

Many people don’t realize that the instant alert push notifications you get on your phone are routed through Google or Apples servers, depending on which device you use. So if you have an iPhone or iPad, any push notifications can be seen by Apple, and if you use an Android, they can be seen by...

How IT teams can conduct a vulnerability assessment for third-party applications

Google Chrome, Adobe Acrobat Reader, TeamViewer, you name it—there’s no shortage of third-party apps that IT teams need to constantly check for vulnerabilities. But to get a better picture of the problem, lets bust out some napkin math. The average company uses about 200 applications overall...

Roblox and Twitch provider Tipalti breached by ransomware [updated]

As a response to this post, Tipalti reached out to us and asked us to post the following statement: Tipalti takes the security of our systems and data very seriously and has strong security protocols and tools in place. The Tipalti cybersecurity team and third-party forensic experts have been...

Introducing Security Advisor Site Scores for OneView: Easy assessment of client security for MSPs

In a world rife with cyber threats, it is crucial for Managed Service Providers MSPs to conduct thorough assessments of their clients’ security posture. Even minor misconfigurations, if overlooked, can leave clients vulnerable to attacks. Yet, lacking the necessary tools, many MSP IT teams are in...

A week in security (October 16 – October 22)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Ragnar Locker ransomware group taken down IT administrators passwords are awful too The hot topics from Europes largest trade fair for IT security Clever malvertising attack uses Punycode to look like KeePasss official website 3 crucial security steps people should...

IT administrators’ passwords are awful too

The key is under the doormat by the front door. The administrator password is "admin". These are easy to remember clues when you are providing entrance to someone you trust. The problem is that they are also enormously easy to guess. It’s where we would expect an unwanted visitor to check first,...