Data breaches leave customers very shaky, report says

Data breaches are one of the most reported cyberattacks against businesses—regardless of size and industry. And while this has highlighted cybersecurity gaps on so many fronts, some companies are still not prioritizing them as they should. Some have scrambled to be compliant but then find...

City: Skylines developers warn of rogue mod

Players of the popular city-building simulator and video game City: Skylines need to check devices for rogue code lurking in mods related to a rework of something called Harmony, essential for modding across several titles. The threat arrives in a broader landscape—video game modding—already know...

A week in security (February 7 – February 13)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Securitas breached, 3TB of airport employee records exposed How to avoid being scammed this Valentine’s Day News Corp falls victim to cyberattack “We absolutely do not care about you”: Sugar ransomware targets individuals Microsoft takes macros out of the equation...

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...

Securitas breached, 3TB of airport employee records exposed

An unsecured AWS server, found open to the public Internet, is the root cause of a huge compromise of data of airport employees in Colombia and Peru. This server, according to a report, belongs to Securitas, a Stockholm-based multinational company that provides security services like security...

Cyberinsurance companies don’t want to pay out for “acts of war”

Due to the evolving and growing impact of cybersecurity incidents there are some questions starting to arise about the way that insurance companies deal with the costs that are the results of such incidents. Cyber insurance is a form of cover designed to protect your business from threats in the...

Dark Souls servers taken offline over hacking fears

There’s been trouble brewing over the weekend for players of the smash-hit Dark Souls series. PvP servers player vs player were temporarily shut down by the developers after a hack. PvP servers for Dark Souls 3, Dark Souls 2, and Dark Souls: Remastered have been temporarily deactivated to allow t...

Red Cross begs attackers to “Do the right thing” after family reunion service compromised

Restoring Family Links is a program most commonly associated with The Red Cross. It’s been around since 1870, and aims to reunite lost family members, repatriate individuals, prevent folks from disappearing, and much more. You may have seen them in the news during times of disaster, war, and othe...

Steer clear of gift card balance scams

Rogue ads are a problem-causing menace which can strike in many ways. Malvertising often uses a combination of exploits to drop malware. Phishing campaigns get the job done with social engineering and bogus websites. This particular incident is an example of the latter, and a good reminder to be...

Sophisticated phishing scheme spent years robbing authors of their unpublished work

Three years ago on Quora, someone asked what writers do to keep their manuscripts from being stolen. One of the top answers reads as follows: You’re joking, right? It’s hard enough to get people to read your novel once it’s out on Amazon, much less reading it before it’s finished…unless you’re...

Most people aren’t upgrading to Windows 11: Not the end of the world

Windows 11 is experiencing an apparent lack of uptake among Windows users. If this survey is accurate, less than 1% of 10 million PCs surveyed are running the new operating system. In fact, more machines are using Windows XP. That may surprise you. It might even seem like a bit of an embarrassing...

That’s the way the cookie banner crumbles?

Elizabeth Denham, current head of the Information Commissioner’s Office ICO, the UK’s data protection watchdog and the organization tasked to ensure that businesses comply with the country’s strict data protection laws, is said to have met with her counterparts in the G7 nations on Tuesday to...

The one reason your iPhone needs a VPN

For years, Apple has marketed its iPhone as the more secure, more private option when compared to other smart phones, which do not, by default, include an end-to-end encrypted messaging app, warn users repeatedly about app location requests, or provide a privacy-forward Single Sign-On feature. Bu...

A week in security (April 23 – April 29)

Last week, we dug into behavioral biometrics, explored a new crossrider variant, and embraced the power of "no." We also launched another CrackMe challenge, took a deep dive into smart toys, and finished up with a look at digital privacy in the age of IoT. Other news LinkedIn does battle with...

Boomerang spam bombs Malwarebytes forum—not a smart move

Tech support scammers are generally not the best and brightest. As such, they will occasionally post ads for their fake companies in the comment sections here or on the Malwarebytes forums. Last week, however, scammers struggled with configuring their spambots, resulting in spam bombs on the foru...

There’s a hole in my bucket: Bitcoin scams aim to exploit volatile market

Bitcoin! Black gold! Texas tea! Only one of these is currently worth ridiculous amounts of money and technically numbers two and three are the same thing. Whether you're in possession of lots of Bitcoins, or in full bandwagon panic "must buy 20 graphics cards before the bubble bursts" mode, you...

A week in security (December 04 – December 10)

Last week on the blog, we looked at a RIG EK malware campaign, explored how children are being tangled up in money mule antics, took a walk through the world of Blockchain, and gave a rundown of what's involved when securing web applications. We also laid out the trials and tribulations of the...

Solution Corner: Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection

We’ve been busy here at Malwarebytes with several product announcements recently. Malwarebytes Incident Response was released in late April, providing threat detection and remediation via our new cloud-based platform. Right on its heels, leveraging the same platform is Malwarebytes Endpoint...

Social media platforms crack down on drone factory recruiting game

A video game about drone warfare may look like an unusual cybersecurity story. But cybersecurity isn't only about malware or stolen passwords. Sometimes it's about understanding how online platforms are used to influence decisions, build trust, and persuade people to share personal information or...

Fake popular sites offer a free app, instead take over PCs

A website built to look almost exactly like CNN’s homepage is telling visitors to download "the new CNN app." But it's not CNN’s app, and has nothing to do with the news company. The campaign doesn’t stop at CNN. It also uses fake Stremio and Avast installers hosted on similarly convincing...

A week in security (August 3 – August 9)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: AI chat bots are sliding into League of Legends friend requests Meta ordered to pay $942 million over harm to children Apple WebKit vulnerabilities reveal your IP address, despite Private Relay Scammers target OnlyFans users with deepfakes Amazon and Apple...

WhatsApp account takeover scam asks you to “vote for my friend”

A scam is spreading through WhatsApp with the goal of taking over victims' accounts entirely. It starts with a message that feels harmless and familiar. Someone—often a contact whose account has already been compromised—asks you to support a friend or relative of theirs by voting in an online...

July 2026 Patch Tuesday fixes 622 Microsoft CVEs, including three zero-days

Just one month ago, June 2026 Patch Tuesday broke Microsoft’s previous record with 206 CVEs and three zero‑days. July now triples that count, reinforcing that the era of “small” Patch Tuesdays may be over as AI‑driven vulnerability discovery ramps up. The update includes 59 critical...

How mule betting scams recruit ordinary people

Mule betting or third-party betting account scams are a form of money mule scam where criminals recruit or coerce people into opening gambling accounts in their own name. The criminals then use those accounts to place bets to help launder money and obscure the source or ownership of funds. The UK...

Verified X ad spreads Mac malware, while ConsentFix steals Microsoft accounts

Cybercriminals are finding new ways to trick people into compromising their own devices and accounts. One campaign used a sponsored ad on X to target Mac users, while another technique, dubbed ConsentFix, steals Microsoft 365 accounts without installing malware. Verified X account used in Mac...

Cardiac patients’ medical data stolen and held to ransom

Cardiac monitoring provider iRhythm has been hit by a data theft followed by an extortion attempt. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission SEC, iRhythm revealed it was contacted by someone on June 9 who claimed to have stolen sensitive information, including proprietary data,...

These convincing copyright notices are designed to steal Google logins

A new scam is targeting people who publish Chrome extensions. The scam arrives as an official-looking "copyright removal request" claiming your extension is about to be removed from the Chrome Web Store and that you have 48 hours to appeal. It even looks personalized. After you enter your...

A week in security (May 4 – May 10)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Microsoft says Edge’s plaintext password behavior is "by design" ShinyHunters escalates Canvas attacks with school login defacements Massive AI investment scam network spans 15,500 domains If a fake moustache can fool age checks, is the Online Safety Act working?...

Medical data of 500,000 UK volunteers listed for sale on Alibaba

Half a million Britons signed up to help cure cancer. Their data ended up for sale on Alibaba. The UK Biobank charity informed the British government of an incident concerning the medical data belonging to 500,000 British citizens being offered for sale on the Chinese e-commerce website Alibaba...

Roblox clamps down on chats and age checks as legal pressure builds

Roblox has long faced criticism over child safety on its platform. Now it has started settling with state attorneys over the issue, and the total is climbing fast. On April 21, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall announced a $12.2 million settlement with the child-focused online gaming...

Your extensions leak clues about you, so we made sure Browser Guard doesn’t

Did you know you can be profiled based on the browser extensions you use? Advertisers can detect which extensions are installed and use that to build a picture of the kind of user you are. For instance, do you pride yourself on being a good online shopper who never pays full price? Maybe you use ...

Wikipedia’s AI agent row likely just the beginning of the bot-ocalypse

The Internet is filled with people who insist on being right. In the past, at least they could be reasonably sure that they were arguing with other humans. Those days are gone, apparently. Wikipedia just had to ban an AI that was making edits on its own. Apparently, the AI took it personally. The...

Zombie ZIP method can fool antivirus during the first scan

A researcher published “Zombie ZIP,” a simple way to change the first part header of a ZIP file so it falsely claims its contents are uncompressed while they are actually compressed. Many antivirus products trust that header and never properly decompress or inspect the real payload. In tests...

Watch out for fake Malwarebytes renewal notices in your calendar

We’ve become aware of a scam campaign sending fake calendar invites that impersonate Malwarebytes and attempt to trick recipients into calling a scam “billing support” number. We have written before about how calendar invites can be abused for phishing, and even about how Google Calendar invites...

March 2026 Patch Tuesday fixes two zero-day vulnerabilities

Microsoft releases important security updates on the second Tuesday of every month, known as Patch Tuesday. This month’s update fixes 79 Microsoft CVEs including two zero-day vulnerabilities. Microsoft defines a zero-day as “a flaw in software for which no official patch or security update is...

Signal and WhatsApp accounts targeted in phishing campaign

Dutch intelligence services AIVD and MIVD warn that Russian state‑backed hackers are running a large‑scale campaign to break into Signal and WhatsApp accounts of high‑value targets. The targets are said to be senior officials, military personnel, civil servants, and journalists. The attackers are...

Hackers may have breached FBI wiretap network via supply chain

Investigators are worried that a recent attack on a critical FBI system was more than just a random hit, and that another nation-state might have been involved. On February 17, the FBI flagged irregular network activity that led straight to its Digital Collection System Network. That system...

Chrome flaw let extensions hijack Gemini’s camera, mic, and file access

Chrome’s Gemini “Live in Chrome” panel Gemini’s embedded, agent-style assistant mode within Chrome had a high‑severity vulnerability tracked as CVE‑2026‑0628. The flaw let a low‑privilege extension inject code into the Gemini side panel and inherit its powerful capabilities, including local file...

Refund scam impersonates Avast to harvest credit card details

A fraudulent website dressed in Avast’s brand is tricking French-speaking users into handing over their full credit card details—card number, expiry date, and three-digit security code—under the cover story of processing a €499.99 refund that was never owed to them. The operation combines live ch...

What can’t you say on TikTok?

This week on the Lock and Code podcast … A funny thing happened on TikTok last month, and it has brought allegations of censorship, manipulation, and control. It was the week of January 22, and after a long legal battle, TikTok had finally—for the first time in its company history—moved its...

Criminals are using AI website builders to clone major brands

AI tool Vercel was abused by cybercriminals to create a Malwarebytes lookalike website. Cybercriminals no longer need design or coding skills to create a convincing fake brand site. All they need is a domain name and an AI website builder. In minutes, they can clone a site's look and feel, plug i...

Apple’s new iOS setting addresses a hidden layer of location tracking

Most iPhone owners have hopefully learned to manage app permissions by now, including allowing location access. But there's another layer of location tracking that operates outside these controls. Your cellular carrier has been collecting your location data all along, and until now, there was...

How fake party invitations are being used to install remote access tools

“You’re invited!” It sounds friendly, familiar and quite harmless. But in a scam we recently spotted, that simple phrase is being used to trick victims into installing a full remote access tool on their Windows computers—giving attackers complete control of the system. What appears to be a casual...

Meta confirms it’s working on premium subscription for its apps

Meta plans to test exclusive features that will be incorporated in paid versions of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It confirmed these plans to TechCrunch. But these plans are not to be confused with the ad-free subscription options that Meta introduced for Facebook and Instagram in the EU, th...

Clawdbot’s rename to Moltbot sparks impersonation campaign

After the viral AI assistant Clawdbot was forced to rename to Moltbot due to a trademark dispute, opportunists moved quickly. Within days, typosquat domains and a cloned GitHub repository appeared—impersonating the project’s creator and positioning infrastructure for a potential supply-chain...

Google will pay $8.25m to settle child data-tracking allegations

Google has settled yet another class-action lawsuit accusing it of collecting children’s data and using it to target them with advertising. The tech giant will pay $8.25 million to address allegations that it tracked data on apps specifically designated for kids. AdMob's mobile data collection Th...

Online shoppers at risk as Magecart skimming hits major payment networks

Researchers have been tracking a Magecart campaign that targets several major payment providers, including American Express, Diners Club, Discover, and Mastercard. Magecart is an umbrella term for criminal groups that specialize in stealing payment data from online checkout pages using malicious...

Fake WinRAR downloads hide malware behind a real installer

A member of our web research team pointed me to a fake WinRAR installer that was linked from various Chinese websites. When these links start to show up, that’s usually a good indicator of a new campaign. So, I downloaded the file and started an analysis, which turned out to be something of a...

In 2025, age checks started locking people out of the internet

If 2024 was the year lawmakers talked about online age verification, 2025 was the year they actually flipped the switch.​ In 2025, across parts of Europe and the US, age checks for certain websites especially pornography turned long‑running child‑protection debates into real‑world access controls...

A week in security (November 17 – November 23)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: AI teddy bear for kids responds with sexual content and advice about weapons Fake calendar invites are spreading. Here’s how to remove them and prevent more Budget Samsung phones shipped with unremovable spyware, say researchers What the Flock is happening with...