Electronic Sales Suppression Tools are cooking the books

When you see point of sale software in the news, its usually because the terminal has been compromised and is now stealing payment details used in the device. Insecure stores, whether compromised as part of an inside job or a phishing attack, are a big problem for both buyers and the store itself...

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...

DeadBolt ransomware gang tricked into giving victims free decryption keys

Dutch police and other law enforcement agencies have managed to trick the DeadBolt ransomware operators into releasing 150 decryption keys for free. The method of obtaining decryption keys was found by a Dutch incident response company called Responders.NU, who shared the method with the police...

School app Seesaw compromised to send shock NSFW image

On Wednesday, parents and teachers reported that student learning platform, Seesaw, had been hacked after some users received an infamous explicit photo known as "goatse" on private chats. Schools from districts in Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, New York, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas...

Apple puts the password on life support with passkey

The "passwordless future" is something many internet users--and a great majority of the cybersecurity industry--have hoped for. Now Apple is about to make those hopes a reality. With the release of iOS 16 yesterday, and macOS Ventura next month, Apple fans will be able to use passkeys, its passwo...

The MSP playbook on deciphering tech promises and shaping security culture

The in-person cybersecurity conference has returned. More than two years after Covid-19 pushed nearly every in-person event online, cybersecurity has returned to the exhibition hall. In San Francisco earlier this year, thousands of cybersecurity professionals walked the halls of Moscone Center at...

Update now! QNAP warns users DeadBolt is exploiting Photo Station vulnerability

QNAP Quality Network Appliance Provider has warned users to update Photo Station to the latest available version. The warning comes after QNAP detected that cybercriminals known as DeadBolt have been exploiting a Photo Station vulnerability in order to encrypt QNAP NAS systems that are directly...

British Airways customers targeted in lost luggage Twitter scam

Getting back into the travel habit? Jumping on a plane soon? Experienced a bit of a luggage disaster and looking for help on social media? Watch out, because a lack of prior research could prove very costly. Word has spread of a bogus Twitter account pretending to be a customer support channel of...

How to secure a Mac for your kids

If you want to know how to secure your Mac so your kids can use it safely, I can help. In 2018 I decided to give my kids an old Apple laptop to share, and I documented the steps I took to secure it. They were still a few years short of their tenth birthdays, and it was their first computer, so I...

Tech support scammers target Microsoft users with fake Office 365 USB sticks

Microsoft is a hot target for scammers and acts of fraud. For example, tech support scam websites cover themselves in Windows branding and messages. Phone scammers claim to be calling directly from Microsoft. If its not a Bill Gates themed lottery spam mail in your mailbox, its a fake Excel...

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...

Phishy calls and emails play on energy cost increase fears

Gas and electricity price concerns are rife at the moment, with spiralling costs and bigger increases waiting down the line. Sadly this makes the subject valuable material for fraudsters, playing into peoples fears with a dash of social engineering to make them worse off than they were previously...

DHS says to update your Emergency Alert Systems immediately

The Department of Homeland Security has issued an advisory after vulnerabilities were found in its Emergency Alert Systems EAS. EAS technology is designed to fire out warning messages during times of national emergency. It can be used to warn of coastal flooding, earthquakes, child abduction,...

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...

In post-Roe US, experts share how to keep your data private

In the weeks since the Supreme Court of the United States removed a nationwide right to choose to have an abortion, millions of Americans have been forced to relearn what is and isn’t safe to do online, as their actions, words, and choices—many of which are tracked digitally—could potentially be...

Lock down your Neopets account: Data breach being investigated

Bad news for players of long-time virtual pet management title Neopets. Word is spreading of a compromise claimed to have accessed around 69 million user accounts. This compromise, posted to a hacking forum, is said to include both the database and around 460 MB of compressed source code from...

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...

Elden Ring maker Bandai Namco hit by ransomware and data leaks

Its not been a great couple of months for gaming giant Bandai Namco. The name behind smash hit titles like Elden Ring and Dark Souls has endured a long run of cheats and hacks. Hacking concerns led to Remote Code Execution issues, and multiplayer features in Souls titles were disabled for months...

Low-income consumers preyed on by fake ISP during pandemic, FCC says

The FCC Federal Communications Commission has proposed a fine of $220,210 against Kyle Traxler of Ohio for allegedly establishing the bogus internet provider, Cleo Communications, to scam low-income consumers. The victims believed they were receiving government-approved discounts on internet...

Europe threatens to ban Facebook over data transfers to the US

If regulators have their way, data transfers from Facebook and Instagram between Europe and the United States could stop this summer. WhatsApp, another Meta service, will not be affected by the decision as it has a different data controller within Meta. This could force Meta, Facebooks parent...

When good-faith hacking gets people arrested, with Harley Geiger: Lock and Code S03E14

When Lock and Code host David Ruiz talks to hackers—especially good-faith hackers who want to dutifully report any vulnerabilities they uncover in their day-to-day work—he often hears about one specific law in hushed tones of fear: the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Ac...

AstraLocker 2.0 ransomware isn’t going to give you your files back

Reversing Labs reports that the latest verison of AstraLocker ransomware is engaged in a a so-called "smash and grab" ransomware operation. Smash and grab is all about maxing out profit in the fastest time. It works on the assumption by malware authors that security software or victims will find...

Amazon Photos vulnerability could have given attackers access to user files and data

Amazon has patched a flaw in the Amazon Photos app which could have allowed an attacker to steal and use a users unique access token that verifies their identity across multiple Amazon APIs. That would give attackers access to a trove of information, since many of these APIs contain personal data...

Internet Safety Month: Everything you need to know about Omegle

Omegle reached the heady heights of fame when everyone least expected it. Thanks to TikTok influencers, children flocked to this 13-year-old platform during the pandemic, unaware of the dangers already there. The concept of talking to strangers online is Omegles main selling point, but its not ne...

LinkedIn scams are a “significant threat”, warns FBI

Digital currency fraud is a growing issue on social media, and LinkedIn is no different. In fact, according to according to Sean Ragan, the FBI’s special agent in charge of the San Francisco and Sacramento, California, field offices, cryptocurrency scams are big business on LinkedIn. "It’s a...

Taking down the IP2Scam tech support campaign

Tech support scams follow a simple business model that has not changed much over the years. After all, why change a recipe that continues to yield large profits. We see countless such campaigns and block them indiscriminately to protect our customers from being defrauded by a fraudulent tech...

Awful 4chan chat bot spouts racial slurs and antisemitic abuse

“A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm” Science fiction readers, and many others, will recognize Asimov’s first law of robotics. After reading about a bot called GPT-4chan I was wondering whether we should include: “A bot may not insult a...

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...

Internet Safety Month: Parental controls—what they can and can’t do for you

Parental controls can be useful to limit the risks your children run into online, but you should know up front that they cannot eliminate every risk out there. Parents and adults everywhere are understandably having a hard time keeping up with the favored social networks of children and...

Phishing mail claims a 3D Secure upgrade is required

Today we took a look at a phishing mail pinning its hopes on a QR code linking to a bogus website. Scammers claim that your mail address has "not been registered for the 3D Secure Security Update". 3D Secure phishing mail The mail reads as follows: Dear Sir / Madam, Our administration has shown...

WhatsApp accounts hijacked by call forwarding

In a short post on LinkedIn Rahul Sasi, founder and CEO of CloudSEK, explains how WhatsApp account takeovers are possible. The methods consists of several steps and it takes some social engineering skills, but it’s good to be aware of the possibility and how it works. It starts with the threat...

Long lost @ symbol gets new life obscuring malicious URLs

Threat actors have rediscovered an old and little-used feature of web URLs, the innocuous @ symbol we usually see in email addresses, and started using it to obscure links to their malicious websites. Researchers from Perception Point noticed it being used in a cyberattack against multiple...

Clearview AI banned from selling facial recognition data in the US

Clearview AI, a facial recognition software and surveillance company, is permanently banned from selling its faceprint database within the United States. The company also cannot sell its database to state and law enforcement entities in Illinois for five years. This is a historic win for the...

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 ...

Steer clear of fake premium mobile app unlockers

A site has been bouncing around YouTube comments for the past couple of weeks. The site sometimes changes, the messages alter slightly, but the essence remains the same: In all cases, people acting in suspiciously automated fashion ask if everyone is using this "glitch" or generator without ever...

Unfixed vulnerability in popular library puts IoT products at risk

Researchers have found a vulnerability in a popular C standard library in IoT products that could allow attackers to perform DNS poisoning attacks against a target device. The library is known to be used by major vendors such as Linksys, Netgear, and Axis, but also by Linux distributions such as...

8 security tips for small businesses

Small businesses and startups are known to face some extra challenges when it comes to cybersecurity. Because they don’t have the size or budget to have a fully-fledged dedicated security team, it often comes down to a smaller staff that doesn’t have the time to do everything that is recommended ...

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...

Fake USA for UNHCR site wants your Ukraine donations in Bitcoin

Since Russia began invading Ukraine in late February, many organizations have set up donation pages to aid the most heavily affected: Families who were forced out of their homes due to bombings and children separated from grown-ups who decided to stay and take arms. Weve also seen a considerable...

Steer clear of this “TestNTrace” SMS spam

Yesterday I received an SMS from “TestNTrace”, with the message resembling an official NHS communication: The text reads as follows: NHS: You’ve been in close contact with a person who has contracted the Omicron variant. Please order a test kit via: URL redacted Well, that’s an alarming thing to...

Why identity management matters

Today is Identity Management Day, which aims to inform the public about the dangers of casually or improperly managing and securing digital identities. The day was started in 2021 and is hosted by the Identity Defined Security Alliance IDSA and National Cybersecurity Alliance. Digital identity A...

Attacks on Ukraine communications are a major part of the war

Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the war on the battlefield has been accompanied by cyber attacks. Those attacks against critical infrastructure have knocked out banking and defense platforms, mostly by targeting several communication systems. In a timeline set up by NetBlocks,...

Satellites are critical infrastructure and need to be cybersecured

In the context of this article we will use the term satellite for a machine that is launched into space and moves around Earth. And there might be a lot more of them than you would expect—this live map tracks a huge number of satellites. Originally most of earth’s satellites were launched for...

Clouding the issue: what cloud threats lie in wait in 2022?

As more services move ever cloud-wards, so too do thoughts by attackers as to how best exploit them. With all that juicy data sitting on someone else’s servers, it’s essential that they run a tight ship. You’re offloading some of your responsibility onto a third party, and sometimes things can go...

FBI catches up with one of its Most Wanted, arrests head of advance-fee crime network

Some dont mind putting extra effort into making their crime appear as legitimate as possible by perpetuating more lies as long as they are guaranteed money in the end. Osondu Victor Igwilo is one such Nigerian scammer. The "catchers" 52-year-old Igwilo has been on the Federal Bureau of...

A week in security (March 7 – March 13)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: The struggle to reduce bug-fixing time is real Update now! Mozilla patches two actively exploited vulnerabilities Google takes on Docs notification spammers When fake dating profiles try the military approach Azure AutoWarp brings automation headaches RagnarLocker...

RagnarLocker ransomware gang breached 52 critical infrastructure organizations

In a FLASH publication issued by the FBI in coordination with DHS/CISA, the FBI says it has identified at least 52 organizations across 10 critical infrastructure sectors affected by RagnarLocker ransomware, including organizations in the critical manufacturing, energy, financial services,...

A week in security (February 28 – March 6)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Beware of malware offering “Warm greetings from Saudi Aramco” Update now! Cisco fixes several vulnerabilities HermeticWiper: A detailed analysis of the destructive malware that targeted Ukraine Tips to protect your data, security, and privacy from a hands-on expert...

Tips to protect your data, security, and privacy from a hands-on expert

This post was authored by one of the most active helpers on the Malwarebytes forums who wishes to remain anonymous. Back in the early days of personal computing, perhaps one of the only real concerns was data loss from a drive failure. That risk still exists, but we all face many other threats...