Facebook clickbait leads to money scam for users

Online criminals are notorious for lurking on social media sites and tricking users into visiting malicious links. We recently observed a scheme where Facebook users are clicking on posts that lead to external websites set up for the sole purpose of scamming them out of hundreds of dollars via fa...

The one and only password tip you need

OK, its time for me to keep a promise. Back in October 2022, I wrote an article called Why almost everything we told you about passwords was wrong. The article summarizes how a lot of what youve been told about passwords over the years was either wrong change your passwords as often as your...

Would-be hitman busted after being fooled by parody website

A member of the Air National Guard is facing federal charges after applying for a job online as an assassin. According to a Justice Department press release, Josiah Ernesto Garcia from Hermitage, Tennessee, was arrested by an undercover federal agent at a park on April 12, 2023. The FBI affidavit...

Introducing the Malwarebytes Admin app: Endpoint security at your fingertips

If youre on the beach sipping piña coladas, the last thing you probably want to do is rush to your desktop and address a critical security issue. And yet, this is the reality for many IT security professionals today. Regardless of the time or current location, security pros are expected to drop...

Ransomware in France, April 2022–March 2023

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 attacks where the victim opted not to pay a ransom. This provides the best overall picture ...

Western Digital confirms breach, affects My Cloud and SanDisk users

Western Digital, a big brand in digital storage, says it has suffered a "network security incident--potentially ransomware--which resulted in a breach and some system disruptions in its business operations. The company identified the incident on March 26 and said an unnamed third party unlawfully...

Fake ransomware demands payment without actually encrypting files

Fake it till you make it ransomware groups are trying to get rich off the backs of genuine ransomware authors. Why are they "fake it till you make it"? Because they dont actually create ransomware or compromise networks in any way. Theyre simply lying through their teeth and hoping that recipient...

"ViLE" members posed as police officers and extorted victims

Two men have been charged with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit computer intrusions after they allegedly extorted victims by threatening to publish their personal information online--a practice known as doxxing. In a press release, the US Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of New York...

WhatsApp refuses to weaken encryption, would rather leave UK

WhatsApp will not comply with the UK's Online Safety Bill when it passes legislation as is. In fact, WhatsApp would rather cease serving UK users, which make up 2% of its global market, than weaken its end-to-end encryption E2EE. Will Cathcart, head of WhatsApp at parent company Meta, made these...

How to work from home securely, the NSA way

People working remotely is no longer unusual, so the National Security Agency NSA has produced a short Best Practices PDF document detailing how remote workers can keep themselves safe from harm. In fact, the guide can also be applied to people using computers at home generally and is written in ...

2023 prediction: Security workforce shortage will lead to nationally significant cyberattack

If 2022 was any indication, businesses are about to face an unprecedented volume, frequency, and sophistication of cyberthreats in 2023. Global cyberattacks have increased by 483 percent over the last two years, and at the current rate of growth, damage from such attacks will amount to $10.5...

Identity thieves bypass security questions to access Experian credit reports

After a tip from a Telegram user who frequented identity theft channels, Brian Krebs tested and confirmed that anyone who knew your name, address, social security number SSN, and birthday could view your full credit report at Experian. Skipping security questions The method to get access did not...

FBI warns of imposter ads in search results

The FBI has issued a public notice which includes advice to block adverts. Why? Lets take a look. The bogus advert tightrope Its no secret that rogue ads have been a particular plague on the Internet for as far back as we can remember. From irritating pop ups and spinning "Youve won a prize"...

An odd kind of cybercrime: Gift vouchers, medical records, and...food

Someone with a gift for technology but a nasty habit of using it for very bad things has been spared from going to jail with a suspended sentence. Peter Foy, 18 at the time of his antics, racked up a remarkable, and slightly peculiar, list of compromises before being brought before the court. A...

Venus ransomware targets remote desktop services

Its time for another tale of remote desktop disaster, as a newish form of ransomware carves out a name for itself. Bleeping Computer reports that individuals behind Venus ransomware are breaking into "publicly exposed Remote Desktop services", with the intention of encrypting any and all Windows...

5 essential security tips for SMBs

In any business, the security of each computer is intimately connected to the security of every other computer. Interconnectedness allows attackers to turn a breach, a fault, or an oversight on one machine into access on all the machines its connected to. That means any attack on any computer is ...

Admin from hell facing 10 years for sabotaging ex-employer's network

The perils of the insider threats are often talked about in abstract terms, probably because most organisations want to keep a lid on internally-based bad actors. Every so often, concrete details emerge to highlight what a thoroughly rotten day a rogue employee can inflict on everybody else thoug...

5 things to teach your kids about social media

With children now back at school, its time to think about social media, and their use of it. Are they already firing out tweets, chatting in Discord channels, or even just looking to set up a Tik-Tok account? Now is the time to consider giving your kids some security and privacy tips for all thei...

A week in security (August 15 - August 21)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Donut breach: Lessons from pen-tester Mike Miller: Lock and Code S03E17 Introducing Malwarebytes Cloud Storage Scanning: How to scan for malware in cloud file storage repositories JSSLoader: the shellcode edition CISA and FBI issue alert about Zeppelin ransomware H...

Ransomware review: July 2022

Malwarebytes Threat Intelligence builds a monthly picture of ransomware activity by monitoring the information published by ransomware gangs on their Dark Web leak sites. This information represents victims who were successfully attacked but opted not to pay a ransom. In July, LockBit maintained...

Anti-vaxxer dating site exposes user data

An anti-vax dating site has been revealed as shockingly easy to compromise by security researchers. Many major aspects of the site, from membership subscriptions to support tickets, were found to be vulnerable. The site, called Unjected, has been around since last year. It functions as a sort of...

Malware spent months hoovering up credit card details from 300 US restaurants

Criminal hackers have been able to steal at least 50,000 credit cards from 300 restaurants in the US, after launching two Magecart campaigns that target the MenuDrive, Harbortouch, and InTouchPOS online payment platforms: Magecart is a web-skimmer—malware that is injected onto a vulnerable websit...

Roe v. Wade: How the cops can use your data: Lock and Code S03E15

On the evening of June 23, in the United States, millions of women went to bed with a Constitutional right to choose to have an abortion, and they went to bed with the many assurances that are tied to that right—to speak about getting an abortion, to organize and provide support to those seeking...

Ransomware rolled through business defenses in Q2 2022

Ransomware has given security professionals a headache for the better part of a decade. Fast forward to 2022, and the headache has become a migraine—not just for IT teams but business owners, employees, and customers as well. Over the last three months, ransomware gangs have increased the pressur...

Cloud-based malware is on the rise. How can you secure your business?

There’s a lot of reasons to think the cloud is more secure than on-prem servers, from better data durability to more consistent patch management — but even so, there are many threats to cloud security businesses should address. Cloud-based malware is one of them. Indeed, while cloud environments...

Brave Search wants to replace Google’s biased search results with yours

Brave Search, Brave Softwares privacy search engine, just turned one. To celebrate, the company says it is moving the search engine out of its beta phase to become the default search engine for all Brave browser users. Goodbye, Google? Not entirely. In May 2015, Mozilla alumni Brendan Eich and...

Police seize and dismantle massive phishing operation

Europol has coordinated a joint operation to arrest members of a cybercrime gang and effectively dismantle their campaigns that netted million in Euros. This operation also led the Belgian Police Police Fédérale/Federale Politie and the Dutch Police Politie to nine arrests, 24 house searches, and...

ALPHV squeezes victim with dedicated leak site for employees and customers

Eyebrows were raised this week when the ALPHV ransomware group created a leak site dedicated to just one of its victims. The site was aimed at the employees and guests of a hotelier that had been attacked, and allowed them to see if their personal details had been leaked. The new tactic seems to ...

Photos of kids taken from spyware-ridden phones found exposed on the internet

A stalkerware-type app that boasts "the best free phone spying software on the market," has exposed the data it snooped on from the phones it was installed in. The data exposed by TheTruthSpy included GPS locations and photos on victims phones, and images of children and babies. This news, first...

Intuit phish says “we have put a temporary hold on your account”

Intuit released a warning about a phishing email being sent to its customers. The phishing emails tell recipients that their account has been put on hold, and try to trick users into “validating their account” to release it again. Intuit Intuit Inc. is an American business software company that...

A week in security (May 23 – 29)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Update now! Nvidia released fixes for 10 flaws in Windows GPU drivers Chicago students lose data to ransomware attackers Hunting down your data with Whitney Merrill: Lock and Code S03E11 Unknown APT group has targeted Russia repeatedly since Ukraine invasion Zero-d...

Hunting down your data with Whitney Merrill: Lock and Code S03E11

Depending on where you live, you can ask a company to hand over all the data it has collected about you and, in a matter of weeks as mandated by law, that company has to fork that information over. Whether the company will abide on time, however, is a different story. In the European Union, the...

10 ways attackers gain access to networks

A joint multi-national cybersecurity advisory has revealed the top ten attack vectors most exploited by cybercriminals in order to gain access to organisation networks, as well as the techniques they use to gain access. The advisory cites five techniques used to gain leverage: 1. Public facing...

The $43 billion Business Email Compromise threat

The FBI has released a public service announcement regarding the ever-present threat of Business Email Compromise BEC. This comes hot on the heels of an earlier release from the Las Vegas FBI department in April. Losses continue to mount, and were currently facing a scam racking up domestic and...

Beware scammers disguised as fraud busters

Fraudsters like confusing and disorienting people. Successful ones avoid obvious lines of approach and try things you wouldnt expect. A recent story highlights this, with a particularly devious method of parting someone from their money. The Daily Record reports scammers running off with an $11,0...

“Reject All” cookie consent button is coming to European Google Search and YouTube

Google will soon be giving European countries a "Reject All" button in the Search and YouTube cookie consent banner. This change, which was revealed by Googles Product Manager for Privacy, Safety & Security Sammit Adhya in a blog post, has already been rolled out in France and will be cascaded to...

Successful operations against Russian Sandworm and Strontium groups targeting Ukraine revealed

The US Department of Justice DoJ and Microsoft have taken the sting out of two operations believed to be controlled by the Russian Federation’s Main Intelligence Directorate GRU. On Wednesday, the DOJ announced that it had disrupted GRU’s control over thousands of internet-connected firewall...

5 ways to spring clean your security

It is now officailly spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and with spring and the longer days comes the inescapable urge to shake off the lethargy of Winter and embrace the need to go through your stuff, throw a bunch of it out, and give the rest of it a shiny new lustre. And in our increasingly...

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...

Tech support fraud is still very much alive, says latest FBI report

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center IC3 has released its annual report. In 2021, IC3 continued to receive a record number of complaints from the American public: 847,376 reported complaints, which was a 7% increase from 2020, with potential losses exceeding $6.9 billion. Among the complaint...

CISA offers guidance on dealing with information manipulation

Malicious actors use influence operations, like spreading false information, to shape public opinion, undermine trust, amplify division, and create dissension. In response, the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency CISA has released CISA Insights: Preparing for and Mitigating Foreign...

Journalist won’t be indicted for hacking for viewing a state website’s HTML

A journalist incorrectly branded as a "hacker" by the governor of Missouri wont be prosecuted "for hacking". This was a quick and foreseen win for St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Josh Renaud after a prosecutor from Cole County dismissed Missouri Governor Mike Parsons criminal charges against him...

The world’s most coveted spyware, Pegasus: Lock and Code S03E04

Two years ago, the FBI reportedly purchased a copy of the worlds most coveted spyware, a tool that can remotely and silently crack into Androids and iPhones without leaving a trace, spilling device contents onto a console possibly thousands of miles away, with little more effort than entering a...

IRS abandons facial recognition plans for online services

If you dislike the use of facial recognition technology in relation to essential services, youre in luck. One such proposition has been removed. Last year, the IRS announced it would be using facial recognition selfies to confirm identity. If you wanted the convenience of making payments online,...

CISA calls for urgent action against critical threats

In a CISA Insights bulletin the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency CISA warns that every organization in the United States is at risk from cyber threats that can disrupt essential services and potentially result in impacts to public safety. The warning specifically reminds readers of...

Cybercriminals’ friend VPNLab.net shut down by law enforcement

Europol has announced that law enforcement has seized or disrupted the 15 servers that hosted VPNLab.net’s service, rendering it no longer available. Led by the Central Criminal Office of the Hannover Police Department in Germany, the coordinated operation took place in Germany itself, the...

What angered us most about cybersecurity in 2021: Lock and Code S03E01

We are just three days into 2022, which means what better time for a 2021 retrospective? But rather than looking at the biggest cyberattacks of last year—which we already did—or the most surprising—like we did a couple of years ago—we wanted to offer something different for readers and listeners...

BlackMatter ransomware group announces shutdown. But for how long?

The BlackMatter ransomware gang has announced they are going to shut down their operation, citing pressure from local authorities. And pressure there is. Only two weeks ago, we wrote about a warning that the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency...

A week in security (Oct 18 – Oct 24)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs Multiple vulnerabilities in popular WordPress plugin WP Fastest Cache. “Killware”: Is it just as bad as it sounds? REvil ransomware disappears after Tor services hijacked. Protect yourself from BlackMatter ransomware: Advice issued. q-logger skimmer keeps Magecart...

How to keep K–12 distance learners cybersecure this school year

With the pandemic still in full swing, educational institutions across the US are kicking off the 2020–2021 school year in widely different ways, from re-opening classrooms to full-time distance learning. Sadly, as schools embracing virtual instruction struggle with compounding IT challenges on t...