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...

What your peers said: G2 comparison of top Endpoint Security vendors

Navigating the world of endpoint security is challenging, with numerous vendors stoking FUD and making bold claims that are difficult to verify. In times like these, the honest opinions of real users are invaluable for busy IT teams. Enter G2, an industry-leading peer-to-peer review site. Each...

Beware: Fake IRS tax email wants your Microsoft account

Last week, the IRS reminded taxpayers that Tax Day, April 18, is Tuesday this week. However, in some states like Alabama, California, and New York, the federal office extended the filing deadlines due to natural disasters. This is an excellent reason for scammers to keep launching tax scam...

Fake Chrome updates spread malware

Compromised websites are causing big headaches for Chrome users. A campaign running since November 2022 is using hacked sites to push fake web browser updates to potential victims. Researcher Rintaro Koike says this campaign has now expanded to also target those who speak Korean, Spanish, and...

TikTok misused children's data, faces $15.6M fine

TikTok has been ordered to pay a fine of $15.6M £12.7M for failing to protect 1.4 million UK children under the age of 13 from accessing its platform in 2020. The Information Commissioner's Office ICO, the UK's data protection watchdog, imposed the fine after finding the company used children's...

TikTok: What’s going on and should I be worried?

Since 2020, several governments and organizations have banned, or considered banning, the immensely popular social media app TikTok from their staffs devices. With all these alarming bells ringing, we thought it might be handy to break down what we know and see if we can plot a sensible strategy...

[Updated April 3] 3CX desktop app used in a supply chain attack

Researchers have found that the 3CX desktop app may be compromised and used in supply chain attacks. The 3CX Desktop App is a Voice over Internet Protocol VoIP type of application which is available for Windows, macOS, Linux and mobile. Many large corporations use it internally to make calls, vie...

Ransomware gunning for transport sector's OT systems next

ENISA the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity has reason to believe that ransomware gangs will begin targeting transportation operational technology OT systems in the foreseeable future. This finding is further explored in the agency's 50-page report entitled ENISA Threat Landscape: Transport...

ChatGPT leaks bits of users' chat history

New gadgets and software come with new bugs, especially if they're rushed. We can see this very clearly in the race between tech giants to push large language models LLMs like ChatGPT and its competitors out the door. In the most recently revealed LLM bug, ChatGPT allowed some users to see the...

"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...

LockBit ransomware demands $2 million for Pierce Transit data

The Pierce County Public Transportation Benefit Area Corporation Pierce Transit has fallen victim to a cyberattack using LockBit ransomware. Pierce Transit is a public transit operator in Washington state. The attack began on February 14, 2023, and required Pierce Transit to implement temporary...

WordPress sites backdoored with ad fraud plugin

WordPress is an immensely popular content management system CMS powering over 43% of all websites. Many webmasters will monetize their sites by running ads and need to draw particular attention to search engine optimization SEO techniques to maximize their revenues. But some people will take a...

A week in security (January 30 - February 5)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: A private moment, caught by a Roomba, ended up on Facebook. Eileen Guo explains how: Lock and Code S04E03 New data wipers deployed against Ukraine Update your LearnPress plugins now! Riot Games refuses to pay ransom to avoid League of Legends leak Analyzing and...

TikTok CEO told to "step up efforts to comply" with digital laws

EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, the EU's digital policy chief, "explicitly conveyed" to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew that the company must "step up efforts to comply" with the European Union's rules on copyright, data protection, and the Digital Services Act DSA--an EU regulation setting out "an...

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...

A week in security (January 1 - 8)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Why does technology no longer excite us? Lock and Code S04E01 New device? Here's how to safely dispose of your old one LastPass updates security notice with information about a recent incident Okta breached last month, no customers compromised Update VPN Plus Serve...

Adult popunder campaign used in mainstream ad fraud scheme

This blog post was authored by Jerome Segura Online advertising is a multi billion dollar industry with projected spending to reach over 600 billion U.S. dollars for 2022. It's not surprising that criminals are trying their hardest to abuse this ecosystem in any way that they can. One of the...

Is an outsourced SOC worth it? Looking at the ROI of MDR

In the turbulent world of cybersecurity, one thing is for certain: Threats are evolving in ways that make them harder for organizations to predict--and stop. For businesses with scarce security staff resources and disconnected, complex toolsets, keeping up with todays cyberthreats is even harder...

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...

Malformed signature trick can bypass Mark of the Web

Mark of the Web MOTW--the technology that ensures Windows pops a warning message when trying to open a file downloaded from the Internet--is back in the news, but unfortunately not in a good way. Bleeping Computer reports that a recently uncovered but somewhat old bug has been unearthed which hel...

Kim Kardashian gets huge fine for crypto ad

The Securities and Exchange Commission SEC announced in a recent press release that it's charging celebrity influencer Kim Kardashian for violating Section 17b of the Securities Act of 1933, or the anti-touting provision. Kardashian was paid to promote EthereumMax or EMAX, a crypto asset security...

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...

Phishers use verified status as bait for Instagram users

Another Instagram phish is doing the rounds, and will appeal to a wide variety of platform users. Bleeping Computer reports that verified status is once again being dangled as bait. The "importance" of being verified Being verified gives the impression of status, or importance, on social media...

Twilio data breach turns out to be more elaborate than suspected

Earlier this month, messaging service Twilio got compromised by a sophisticated social engineering attack. After deploying phishing attacks against company employees, hackers were able to access user data, but now it seems that the impact of the hack was more elaborate than originally assumed. In...

Anti-tracking tool tells you if you're being followed

If there is one thing we know about the people around us, even the perfect strangers, it's that they almost all have smartphones. And those smartphones aren't merely passive receivers, they're broadcasting constantly, looking for things you might want to connect to. Advertisers have exploited the...

Viral video drives malvertising on social media platform

This blog post was authored by Jerome Segura Viral content shared on social media is highly coveted since it gets a lot of impressions and engagement. Unfortunately, the people who push this kind of content don't always have the best of intentions. We recently identified a malvertising campaign o...

A week in security (August 1 - August 7)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Have we lost the fight for data privacy? Lock and Code S03E16 Wrestling star Mick Foleys Twitter compromised, selling PS5 consoles Millions of Arris routers are vulnerable to path traversal attacks When a sextortion victim fights back How to protect yourself and yo...

When a sextortion victim fights back

When Katie Yates suddenly started receiving nude photos of her friend, Natalie Claus, over on Snapchat, she instantly recognized that Claus had just become a victim of a sextortion attack. She also knew how Claus should respond. This happened in December 2019 when Claus was a sophomore. Both were...

TikTok owner ByteDance pushed a pro-China agenda to Americans, say former employees

Controversy over supposed pro-China messaging in apps from TikTok owner Bytedance continues to grow. Tales are emerging relating to a now shelved app called TopBuzz. Former employees have spoken to BuzzFeed, making claims of both pro-China content promotion and forms of censorship elsewhere...

A week in security (July 11 – July 17)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Elden Ring maker Bandai Namco hit by ransomware and data leaks Predatory Sparrow massively disrupts steel factories while keeping workers safe New variant of Android SpyJoker malware removed from Play Store after 3 million+ installs China’s Tonto Team increases...

Fake job offer leads to $600 million theft

Back in March, popular NFT battler Axie Infinity lay at the heart of a huge cryptocurrency theft inflicted on the Ronin network. From the Ronin newsletter: There has been a security breach on the Ronin Network. Earlier today, we discovered that on March 23rd, Sky Mavis’s Ronin validator nodes and...

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...

Dial 311 for… cybersecurity emergencies?

Members of the Cybersecurity Advisory Committee of CISA Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have proposed an emergency cybersecurity call line for small and medium-sized businesses SMBs. Should the proposition be approved, SMBs would be able to call 311 in the event of a cybersecurit...

Introducing EDR for Linux: Remediating and isolating threats on Linux servers

We’re excited to announce our new EDR for Linux offering, which extends our advanced protection and response capabilities to Linux devices via Nebula and OneView. In this post, we show you what remediating and isolating threats on Linux servers looks like with Malwarebytes EDR for Linux. Let’s ge...

Eerie GoodWill ransomware forces victims to publish videos of good deeds on social media

Ransomware does what the name implies: holds your files or network to ransom. Pay the authors, typically in cryptocurrency, and you may get your files back. Refuse, and the files could be lost forever or even leaked to the far corners of the net. Sometimes creators of ransomware try different...

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...

State-backed hacking group from China is targeting the Russian military

In an unexpected turn of events, research has surfaced about a Chinese APT advanced persistent threat group targeting the Russian military in recent cyberattacks. Tracked as Bronze President, Mustang Panda, RedDelta, and TA416, the group has focused mainly on Southeast Asian targets—and more...

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...

Hackers fool major tech companies into handing over data of women and minors to abuse

Some major tech companies have unwittingly opened harassment and exploitation opportunities to the women and children who they have pledged to protect. This happened because they provided information in response to emergency data requests from legitimate law enforcement accounts that hackers had...

“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...

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...

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...

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...

A week in security (March 14 – 20)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Beware of this bogus and phishy “Instagram Support” email Meet Exotic Lily, access broker for ransomware and other malware peddlers Double header: IsaacWiper and CaddyWiper How to protect RDP Online Safety Bill’s provisions for “legal but harmful” content described...

Beware of this bogus (and phishy) “Instagram Support” email

Recently, a fake Instagram email successfully bypassed Googles email filters and made it into hundreds of employee inboxes used by a prominent US life insurance company based in New York. This was revealed in a report by Armorblox, a cybersecurity company specializing in stopping business email...

When fake dating profiles try the military approach

I’ve run into many romance scams over the years. You’ll find them lurking on social media, instant messaging, chatrooms/forums, and many more besides. They’re particularly popular during times of war or natural disaster, as they often dovetail into donation and charity scams. The icing on the cak...

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...

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...

Microsoft takes macros out of the equation for five Office apps

Microsoft says it is going to disable macros in five Office apps by default. Besides Excel 4.0 macros, which were disabled by default last month, now VBA macros obtained from the Internet will be blocked by default as well. The change will begin rolling out in Version 2203, starting with Current...