A week in security (July 7 – July 13)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Deepfake criminals impersonate Marco Rubio to uncover government secrets McDonald’s AI bot spills data on job applicants Millions of people spied on by malicious browser extensions in Chrome and Edge No thanks: Google lets its Gemini AI access your apps, including...

Update your Chrome to fix new actively exploited zero-day vulnerability

Google has released an update for its Chrome browser to patch an actively exploited flaw. This update is crucial since it addresses an actively exploited vulnerability which can be exploited when the user visits a malicious website. It doesn’t require any further user interaction, which means the...

Facebook wants to look at your entire camera roll for “AI restyling” suggestions, and more

Facebook's pursuit of your personal data continues apace, and now it has a new target: photos on your phone that you haven't shared with it yet. Techcrunch reports that the social media giant is now asking its users to peek at the photos on their phones' camera rolls. In return it will give them...

Sextortion email scammers increase their “Hello pervert” money demands

Every so often the sextortion emails that start with “Hello pervert” get a redesign. You may have received one yourself: The emails claim that the sender has been watching your online behavior and caught you red-handed doing activities that you would like to keep private. The email usually starts...

Your Meta AI chats might be public, and it’s not a bug

Conversations that people are having with the Meta AI app are being exposed publicly, often without the users realizing it, revealing a variety of medical, legal, and private matters. The standalone app and the company's integrations with artificial intelligence AI across its platforms—Facebook,...

Google bug allowed phone number of almost any user to be discovered

Google has fixed vulnerabilities that made it possible to retrieve the phone numbers of almost any Google user. The flaw was found in the flow that allows users to recover their Google account using a phone number. A cybersecurity researcher called Brutecat was able to figure out the phone number...

Data broker protection rule quietly withdrawn by CFPB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...

FBI issues warning as scammers target victims of crime

The FBI has issued a warning about an ongoing fraud scheme where criminal scammers are impersonating FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center IC3 employees in order to scam people. Between December 2023 and February 2025, the FBI received over 100 reports of scams involving people posing as IC3...

DeepSeek users targeted with fake sponsored Google ads that deliver malware

The threat intel research used in this post was provided by Malwarebytes Senior Director of Research, Jérôme Segura. DeepSeek’s rising popularity has not only raised concerns and questions about privacy implications, but cybercriminals are also using it as a lure to trap unsuspecting Google...

23andMe bankruptcy: How to delete your data and stay safe from the 2023 breach

The genetic testing company 23andMe filed for bankruptcy on Sunday, announcing that, in searching for financial stability through its sale to a new owner, the business will continue operating as normal, including in how customer data is handled. “The company intends to continue operating its...

Amazon disables privacy option, will send your Echo voice recordings to the cloud

Amazon has announced its Echo devices will no longer have the option to store and process requests on the device itself, meaning your voice recordings will now be sent to the cloud for processing. In an email sent to customers, Amazon explained that the feature "Do Not Send Voice Recordings" will...

Reddit will start warning users that upvote violent content

In a post on r/RedditSafety by a Reddit administrator, the platform announced that it will start sending warnings to users that upvote violent content. Reddit is a social media platform and online forum where users can share and discuss content across a wide range of topics. The platform's...

Apple ordered to grant access to users’ encrypted data

Last week, an article in the Washington Post revealed the UK had secretly ordered Apple to provide blanket access to protected cloud backups around the world. Since then, privacy focused groups have uttered their objections. The UK government has demanded to be able to access encrypted data store...

20 million OpenAI accounts offered for sale

A cybercriminal acting under the moniker “emirking” offered 20 million OpenAI user login credentials this week, sharing what appeared to be samples of the stolen data itself. Post by emirking A translation of the Russian statement by the poster says: “When I realized that OpenAI might have to...

New AI “agents” could hold people for ransom in 2025

A paradigm shift in technology is hurtling towards us, and it could change everything we know about cybersecurity. Uhh, again, that is. When ChatGPT was unveiled to the public in late 2022, security experts looked on with cautious optimism, excited about the new technology but concerned about its...

ClickFix vs. traditional download in new DarkGate campaign

During the past several months there have been numerous malware campaigns that use a technique something referred to as "ClickFix". It often consists of a fake CAPTCHA or similar traffic validation page where visitors are instructed to paste and execute code in order to proceed. We have started t...

Data breaches in 2024: Could it get any worse?

It may sound weird when I say that I would like to remember 2024 as the year of the biggest breaches. That’s mainly because that would mean we’ll never see another year like it. To support this nomination, I will remind you of several high-profile breaches, some of a size almost beyond imaginatio...

5 million payment card details stolen in painful reminder to monitor Christmas spending

Another day, another exposed S3 bucket. This time, 5 million US credit cards and personal details were leaked online. The Leakd.com security team discovered that 5 terabytes of sensitive screenshots were exposed in a freely accessible Amazon S3 bucket. An S3 bucket is like a virtual file folder i...

Task scams surge by 400%, but what are they?

An unfamiliar type of scam has surged against everyday people, with a year-over-year increase of some 400%, putting job seekers at risk of losing their time and money. The emerging threat is delivered in "task scams" or "gamified job scams." While these scams were virtually non-existent in 2020,...

4.8 million healthcare records left freely accessible

Your main business is healthcare, so your excuse when you get hacked is that you didn’t have the budget to secure your network. Am I right? So, in order to prevent a ransomware gang from infiltrating your network, you could just give them what they want—all your data. The seemingly preferred meth...

Crypto’s rising value likely to bring new wave of scams

With the value of cryptocurrencies going to the roof, you can expect several attempts to get defrauded if you even show the slightest interest in the topic or not. Since most cybercriminals lack creativity and are notoriously lazy, we expect to see only slight variations of old tricks. So, we...

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...

“Hilariously insecure”: Andrew Tate’s The Real World breached, 800,000 users affected

Andrew Tate's online education platform The Real World—formerly known as Hustlers University—has been hacked and user data has been stolen. Hacktivists flooded the primary chatroom with emojis as proof that they had breached the site. After this they shared approximately 794,000 usernames of,...

Air fryers are the latest surveillance threat you didn’t consider

Consumer group Which? has warned shoppers to be selective when it comes to buying smart air fryers from Xiaomi, Cosori, and Aigostar. We've learned to expect that “smart” appliances come with privacy risks—toothbrushes aside—but I really hadn’t given my air fryer any thought. Now things are about...

A week in security (October 14 – October 20)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Unauthorized data access vulnerability in macOS is detailed by Microsoft 23andMe will retain your genetic information, even if you delete the account "Nudify" deepfake bots remove clothes from victims in minutes, and millions are using them Tor Browser and Firefox...

Election season raises fears for nearly a third of people who worry their vote could be leaked

As the United States enters full swing into its next presidential election, people are feeling worried, unsafe, and afraid. And none of that has to do with who wins. According to new research from Malwarebytes, people see this election season as a particularly risky time for their online privacy...

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...

What the arrest of Telegram’s CEO means, with Eva Galperin (Lock and Code S05E19)

This week on the Lock and Code podcast… On August 24, at an airport just outside of Paris, a man named Pavel Durov was detained for questioning by French investigators. Just days later, the same man was charged in crimes related to the distribution of child pornography and illicit transactions,...

Lowe’s employees phished via Google ads

In mid-August, we identified a malvertising campaign targeting Lowes employees via Google ads. Like many large corporations, Lowes has their own employe portal called MyLowesLife, for all matters related to schedule, pay stubs, or benefits. Lowes employees who searched for "myloweslife" during th...

Scammers are impersonating cryptocurrency exchanges, FBI warns

The Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI issued a public service announcement warning the public about scammers impersonating cryptocurrency exchange employees to steal funds. There are many types of crypto related scams, but in this case, the FBI provided an advisory about scammers that contact t...

Shopify says stolen customer data was taken in third-party breach

Shopify has denied a breach of its systems after a cybercriminal posted alleged Shopify customer details online. Shopify told BleepingComputer and other publications that the incident happened at a third party: "Shopify systems have not experienced a security incident. The data loss reported was...

‘RockYou2024’: Nearly 10 billion passwords leaked online

On a popular hacking form, a user has leaked a file that contains 9,948,575,739 unique plaintext passwords. The list appears to be a compilation of passwords that were obtained during several old and more recent data breaches. The list is referred to as RockYou2024 because of its filename,...

Notorious data leak site BreachForums seized by law enforcement

BreachForums—probably the largest dark web marketplace for stolen data to be leaked and sold—has been seized by law enforcement. Now, both the regular and the TOR domain of BreachForums are plastered with a message telling visitors the site is now under control of the FBI. The FBI said BreachForu...

Cybersecurity spend to soar in 2024: How companies can maximize their investment

"Spend smarter, not harder" is the mantra for 2024, as Gartner forecasts a 14.3% jump in global security and risk management spending—an uptick which brings a renewed focus on the need for cost-effective cybersecurity investments. Inefficient cybersecurity spending, a known problem, becomes even...

A week in security (December 25 – December 31)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: How to recognize AI-generated phishing mails How ransomware operators try to stay under the radar 4 sneaky scams from 2023 The top 4 ransomware gang failures of 2023 Have a safe 2024! Our business solutions remove all remnants of ransomware and prevent you from...

The sound of you typing on your keyboard could reveal your password

As if password authentications coffin needed any more nails, researchers in the UK have discovered yet another way to hammer one in. The technique, developed at Durham University, the University of Surrey, and Royal Holloway University of London, builds on previous work to produce a more accurate...

Meta’s Purple Llama wants to test safety risks in AI models

Meta has announced Purple Llama, a project that aims to "bring together tools and evaluations to help the community build responsibly with open generative AI models." Generative Artificial Intelligence AI models have been around for years and their main function, compared to older AI models is th...

Update your iPhones! Apple fixes two zero-days in iOS

Apple has released emergency security updates for iOS 17.1.2 and iPadOS 17.1.2 to patch for two zero-day vulnerabilities that may have been actively exploited. Apple said both vulnerabilities were in the WebKit component, which is the engine that powers Safari browser on Macs as well as all...

Ransomware gangs and Living Off the Land (LOTL) attacks: A deep dive

We’ve told you about ransomware-as-a-service RaaS gangs; we’ve told you about living off the Land LOTL attacks. What do you get when you bring the two together? Bad news. Our recent report, Threat Brief: Ransomware Gangs & Living Off the Land Attacks, takes a deep dive into why the intersection o...

Ransomware gang files SEC complaint about victim

In what seems to be a new twist on the ransomware theme, the notorious ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware group has filed a complaint with the US Securities and Exchange Commission SEC about the software company MeridianLink. ALPHV is one of the most active ransomware-as-a-service RaaS operators and...

Face search engine PimEyes stops searches of children’s faces

In what may come as a surprise, subscription-based face search engine PimEyes seems to have realized that their service can be used for nefarious purposes. PimEyes’ CEO Giorgi Gobronidze told the New York Times that it has taken technical measures to block such searches as part of a “no harm...

Sony was attacked by two ransomware operators

On September 25, newcomer ransomware group RansomedVC claimed to have successfully compromised the computer systems of entertainment giant Sony. Then, on October 4, news leaked that Sony had told current and former employees and their family members about another cybersecurity breach that exposed...

Dependabot impersonators cause trouble on GitHub

GitHub is experiencing issues of the "breached account and malicious code" variety. ITPro reports that unnamed individuals have been compromising accounts and using them to install malware capable of password theft. Its a fairly elaborate scam which even includes imitation of GitHubs popular...

Malicious ad served inside Bing's AI chatbot

In February 2023, Microsoft disclosed its new AI-assisted search engine, Bing Chat, powered by OpenAI's GPT-4. Even though Google has been dominating the search industry for years, this event was significant enough to generate not only interest but also plant the seed for a possible change in the...

Microsoft AI researchers accidentally exposed terabytes of sensitive data

Warnings about including credentials, keys, and tokens when sharing code on publicly accessible repositories shouldnt be necessary. It should speak for itself that you dont just hand over the keys to your data. But what if a misconfiguration ends in a supposed internal storage account becoming...

How “EDR Extra Strength” simplifies traditional EDR complexity

Traditional Endpoint Detection and Response EDR today has a three-fold complexity problem--with big consequences. First, complexity in EDR deployment causes long delays, directly impacting ROI and leaving organizations vulnerable to breaches. In fact, almost 10 percent of small security teams cit...

Cisco VPNs without MFA are under attack by ransomware operator

The Cisco Product Security Incident Response Team PSIRT has posted a blog about Akira ransomware targeting VPNs without Multi-Factor Authentication MFA. The Cisco team states that it is aware of reports of the Akira ransomware group going specifically after Cisco VPNs that are not configured for...

Meal delivery service PurFoods announces major data breach

An organisation that provides home delivery meals has revealed that around 1.2 million people's personal data may be at risk, after the company suffered a ransomware attack earlier in the year. PurFoods, which offers up a service called Moms Meals, helps to provide meals for folks in a variety of...

A week in security (August 14 - August 20)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Attackers demand ransoms for stolen LinkedIn accounts Patch now! Citrix Sharefile joins the list of actively exploited file sharing software Exchange Server security updates updated Catching up with WoofLocker, the most elaborate traffic redirection scheme to tech...

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...