PayPal closes loophole that let scammers send real emails with fake purchase notices

After an investigation by BleepingComputer, PayPal closed a loophole that allowed scammers to send emails from the legitimate [email protected] email address. Following reports from people who received emails claiming an automatic payment had been cancelled, BleepingComputer found that...

AI teddy bear for kids responds with sexual content and advice about weapons

In testing, FoloToy’s AI teddy bear jumped from friendly chat to sexual topics and unsafe household advice. It shows how easily artificial intelligence can cross serious boundaries. It’s a fair moment to ask whether AI-powered stuffed animals are appropriate for children. It’s easy to get swept u...

We opened a fake invoice and fell down a retro XWorm-shaped wormhole

Somebody forwarded an “invoice” email and asked me to check the attachment because it looked suspicious. Good instinct—it was, and what we found inside was a surprisingly old trick hiding a modern threat. What it does If the recipient had opened the attached Visual Basic Script .vbs file, it woul...

Phishing scam uses fake death notices to trick LastPass users

LastPass has alerted users about a new phishing attack that claims the recipient has died. According to the message, a family member has submitted a death certificate to gain access to the recipient’s password vault. A link in the phishing email, supposedly to stop the request, leads to a fake pa...

Home Depot Halloween phish gives users a fright, not a freebie

We received a timely phishing email pretending to come from Home Depot. It claimed we’d won a Gorilla Carts dump cart that’s a sort of four-wheeled wheelbarrow for anyone unfamiliar—and said it was just one click away. It wasn’t. The whole image in the email was clickable, and it hid plenty of...

A week in security (September 15 – September 21)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: ChatGPT Deep Research zero-click vulnerability fixed by OpenAI Disrupted phishing service was after Microsoft 365 credentials Update your Chrome today: Google patches 4 vulnerabilities including one zero-day Age verification and parental controls coming to ChatGPT ...

Smart air fryers ordered to stop invading our digital privacy

In a confirmation that we've gone full Black Mirror, the UK's privacy czar has wagged a finger at air fryer manufacturers and told them to stop playing with our data. New draft guidance from the Information Commissioner's Office ICO targets not just air fryer vendors but manufacturers of any smar...

A week in security (June 9 – June 15)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Been scammed online? Here’s what to do How and where to report an online scam Google bug allowed phone number of almost any user to be discovered 44% of people encounter a mobile scam every single day, Malwarebytes finds GirlsDoPorn owner faces life in jail after...

Stalkerware apps go dark after data breach

A stalkerware company that recently leaked millions of users' personal information online has taken all of its assets offline without any explanation. Now Malwarebytes has learned that the company has taken down other apps too. Back in February, news emerged of a stalkerware app compromise...

Data broker protection rule quietly withdrawn by CFPB

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau CFPB has decided to withdraw a 2024 rule to limit the sale of Americans’ personal information by data brokers. In a Federal Register notice published yesterday, the CFPB said it "has determined that legislative rulemaking is not necessary or appropriate at...

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...

Hi, robot: Half of all internet traffic now automated

If you sometimes feel that the internet isn't the same vibrant place it used to be, you're not alone. New research suggests that most of the traffic traversing the network isn't human at all. Bots software programs that interact with web sites have been ubiquitous for years. But in its 2025 Bad B...

A week in security (March 31 – April 6)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Why we’re no longer doing April Fools’ Day Intimate images from kink and LGBTQ+ dating apps left exposed online "Urgent reminder" tax scam wants to phish your Microsoft credentials "Nudify" deepfakes stored unprotected online Location, name, and photos of random ki...

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...

Malwarebytes Premium Security awarded “Product of the Year” from AVLab

Malwarebytes Premium Security has once again been awarded “Product of the Year” after successfully blocking 100% of “in-the-wild” malware samples. The samples were deployed in multiple, consecutive third-party tests conducted by the AVLab Cybersecurity Foundation. AVLab commended Malwarebytes for...

SecTopRAT bundled in Chrome installer distributed via Google Ads

Criminals are once again abusing Google Ads to trick users into downloading malware. Ironically, this time the bait is a malicious ad for Google Chrome, the world's most popular browser. Victims who click the ad land on a fraudulent Google Sites page designed as a intermediary portal, similar to...

Cybercrime gets a few punches on the nose

It’s not often that we get to share good news, so we wanted to grab this opportunity and showcase some progress made by law enforcement actions against cybercrime with you. Europol notified us about the take-down of two of the largest cybercrime forums in the world. With over 10 million users,...

Some weeks in security (December 16 – January 5)

During the holiday period on Malwarebytes Labs we covered: A day in the life of a privacy pro, with Ron de Jesus Lock and Code S05E26 Task scams surge by 400%, but what are they? 5 million payment card details stolen in painful reminder to monitor Christmas spending AI-generated malvertising "whi...

Spotify, Audible, and Amazon used to push dodgy forex trading sites and more

Spotify and Amazon services have been flooded with bogus listings that push dubious "forex trading" sites, Telegram channels, and suspicious links claiming to offer pirated software according to our friends over at BleepingComputer. Cybercriminals are abusing the options to inject keywords and...

A week in security (October 7 – October 13)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Modern TVs have "unprecedented capabilities for surveillance and manipulation," group reveals Internet Archive suffers data breach and DDoS Google Search user interface: A/B testing shows security concerns remain AI girlfriend site breached, user fantasies stolen...

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...

Radiology provider exposed tens of thousands of patient files

An anonymous person has disclosed that they gained online access to a radiologist's platform that hosted patient information using stolen credentials. I-MED Radiology is Australia’s leading medical imaging provider. Their clinics offer a range of imaging procedures including MRI, CT, x-ray,...

SpaceX, CNN, and The White House internal data allegedly published online. Is it real?

A cybercriminal has released internal data online that they say has come from leaks at several high-profile sources, including SpaceX, CNN, and the White House. However, there are some questions around the reliability and usefulness of the released data, so we took a closer look. When it comes to...

Ticketmaster hackers release stolen ticket barcodes for Taylor Swift Eras Tour [updated]

The cybercriminals who claimed responsibility for the Ticketmaster data breach say theyve stolen 440,000 tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. As proof, an entity using the handle Sp1d3rHunters, a merger of Sp1d3r and ShinyHunters who are both aliases associated with the breach, leaked 170k...

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 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...

Psychotherapy practice hacker gets jail time after extorting patients, publishing personal therapy notes online

On October 30, 2020, I started a article with the words: “Hell is too nice a place for these people.” The subject of this outrage focused on the cybercriminals behind an attack on Finnish psychotherapy practice Vastaamo. Because it was a psychotherapy practice, the records contained extremely...

A week in security (February 26 – March 3)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: PikaBot malware on the rise: What organizations need to know Malicious meeting invite fix targets Mac users Pig butchering scams, how they work and how to avoid them Airbnb scam sends you to a fake Tripadvisor site, takes your money Facebook bug could have allowed...

Android banking trojans: How they steal passwords and drain bank accounts

For the most popular operating system in the world—which is Android and it isn’t even a contest—there’s a sneaky cyberthreat that can empty out a person’s bank accounts to fill the illicit coffers of cybercriminals. These are “Android banking trojans,” and, according to our 2024 ThreatDown State ...

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...

Signal to shield user phone numbers by default

Chat app Signal will shield user’s phone numbers by default from now on. And, it will no longer be necessary to exchange phone numbers when people want to connect through the app. In November, we reported that Signal was testing usernames to eliminate the need to share your phone number. Signal h...

A true tale of virtual kidnapping: Lock and Code S05E02

This week on the Lock and Code podcast… On Thursday, December 28, at 8:30 pm in the Utah town of Riverdale, the city police began investigating what they believed was a kidnapping. 17-year-old foreign exchange student Kai Zhuang was missing, and according to Riverdale Police Chief Casey Warren,...

Apple now requires a judge’s order to hand over your push notification data

Last week, we reported on how US government agencies have been asking Apple and Google for metadata related to push notifications, but the companies arent allowed to tell users about it happening. The content of the notifications is diverse. It ranges from a weather app warning you about rain to ...

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...

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...

CISA catalog passes 1,000 known-to-be-exploited vulnerabilities. Celebration time, or is it?

On September 18, 2023, the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency CISA announced that its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities KEV catalog has reached the milestone of covering more than 1,000 vulnerabilities since its launch in November 2021. This may seem like a lot, but with over 25,000 new...

Google’s Bard conversations turn up in search results

Google is coming under scrutiny after people discovered transcripts of conversations with its AI chatbot Bard are being indexed in Google search results. Bard is Googles answer to ChatGPT, and allows users to have conversations with an AI. Services like these have attracted a lot of attention,...

Malwarebytes Admin update: New Detection screens to manage threats!

We released version 1.2 of the Malwarebytes Admin app for iOS and Android last week, adding new Detection features make it easier to see and manage threats. Designed as a companion to the Nebula console, Malwarebytes Admin allows administrators to quickly review, investigate, and resolve security...

The privacy perils of the Metaverse

A recently released report from New York University claims that the Metaverse, an all-in-one virtual online space, poses a potentially major risk to user privacy. This is because headsets and other similar devices can collect an incredible amount of personal, physical and biometric information. T...

The main causes of ransomware reinfection

A few months ago, we wrote about a ransomware reinfection incident. Ransomware reinfection arguably could be even worse than being a first time victim. Unfortunately it happens more often than you may think. Research shows that in 2022, more than a third 38% of surveyed organizations fell victim ...

Chrome's "Enhanced Ad Privacy": What you need to know

Users of Google's Chrome web browser may wish to dig into their privacy settings as a new feature regarding advertising privacy slowly rolls out to the masses. Googles "Enhanced Ad Privacy" feature may soon appear in your browser, tied to choices regarding a new Chrome feature named Topics. This ...

Several hospitals still counting the cost of widespread ransomware attack

The 16 hospitals struck down by ransomware last week are still dealing with the fallout from the attack. The healthcare facilities located in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode island, and California had the ransomware attack confirmed by the FBI. Issues started to emerge last Thursday with patient...

Brave browser will prevent websites from port scanning visitors

If you use Brave browser, then youre shortly going to find you have a new string added to your security bow. Websites performing port scanning will now be automatically blocked beginning with version 1.54 of the browsing tool. Port scanning, I hear you cry? Yes indeed. You may well not have even...

Online safety tips for LGBTQIA+ communities

The internet is great for bringing people together, helping you feel part of a community, and staying in touch with your nearest and dearest. But it can also be a nasty place - from malware to scammers, to people just being plain awful to others. It's probably not surprising to read that recent...

Phishing scam takes $950k from DoorDash drivers

A particularly nasty slice of phishing, scamming, and social engineering is responsible for DoorDash drivers losing a group total of around $950k. DoorDash drivers are contractors who pick up food deliveries from stores and restaurants and deliver the products to the customer. A 21 year old man...

A week in security (June 5 - 11)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Trusting AI not to lie: The cost of truth: Lock and Code S04E12 5 unusual cybersecurity tips that actually work The 2023 State of Ransomware in Education: 84% increase in attacks over 6-month period Information stealer compromises legitimate sites to attack other...

How Coffee County Schools safeguards 7500 students and 1200 staff

We're excited to announce that our much-anticipated 4th edition of the Byte Into Security webinar series is now available on-demand. Originally aired on May 31st, this session is a goldmine for those facing the unique challenges of K-12 cybersecurity. The webinar is free, and you can watch it rig...

Apple releases first Rapid Security Response update for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS users

On Monday, Apple released its first batch of Rapid Security Response RSR patches, iOS 16.4.1 a, iPadOS 16.4.1 a, and macOS 13.3.1 a, for iPhone and iPad, and macOS devices, respectively. RSR is a new type of software patch delivered between Apple's regular, scheduled software updates. Previously,...

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...