Tax deadline threat: QuickBooks phishing scam exploits Google Ads

The pressure of the looming tax filing deadline April 15th in the US can make anyone rush online tasks. Cybercriminals are acutely aware of this increased activity and are exploiting trusted platforms like Google to target Intuit QuickBooks users. By purchasing prominent Google Ads, they are...

Don’t let your kids on Roblox if you’re not comfortable, says Roblox CEO

In response to growing worries about the safety of children using Roblox, the CEO of the company has said to parents: "My first message would be, if you're not comfortable, don't let your kids be on Roblox." Roblox is one of the most popular gaming platforms, especially among young children...

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...

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...

I spoke to a task scammer. Here’s how it went

Tasks scam are surging, with a year over year increase of 400%. So I guess it should have been no surprise when I was contacted by a task scammer on X recently. Task scammers prey on people looking for remote jobs by offering them simple repetitive tasks such as liking videos, optimizing apps,...

TikTok: Major investigation launched into platform’s use of children’s data

TikTok is the subject of yet another major investigation, reports BBC News. This time around, the UK’s Information Commissioner's Office ICO is going to look at how the data of 13 to 17-year-olds feeds the algorithm that decides what further content to show. The ICO introduced a children’s code f...

Google Docs used by infostealer ACRStealer as part of attack

An infostealer known as ACRStealer is using legitimate platforms like Google Docs and Steam as part of an attack, according to researchers. ACRStealer is often distributed via the tried and tested method of download as cracks and keygens, which are used in software piracy. The infostealer has bee...

Hard drives containing sensitive medical data found in flea market

Somebody bought a batch of 15 GB hard drives from a flea market, and during a routine check of the contents they found medical data about hundreds of patients. After some more investigation in the Netherlands, it turned out the data came from a software provider in the medical industry which had...

Gambling firms are secretly sharing your data with Facebook

While you might think you’re hitting the jackpot, whether you’ve consented to it or not, online gambling sites are playing with your data. Users’ data, including details of webpages they visited and buttons they clicked, are being shared with Meta, Facebook’s parent company. The Observer reports...

WhatsApp says Paragon is spying on specific users

WhatsApp has accused the professional spyware company Paragon of spying on a select group of users. WhatsApp, the Meta-owned, end-to-end encrypted messaging platform, said it has reliable information that nearly 100 journalists and other “members of civil society” were targets of a spyware campai...

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...

UnitedHealth almost doubles victim numbers from massive Change Healthcare data breach

UnitedHealth says it now estimates that the data breach on its subsidiary Change Healthcare affected 190 million people, nearly doubling its previous estimate from October. In May, UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty estimated that the ransomware attack compromised the data of a third of US individuals...

Insurance company accused of using secret software to illegally collect and sell location data on millions of Americans

Insurance company Allstate and its subsidiary Arity unlawfully collected, used, and sold data about the location and movement of Texans’ cell phones through secretly embedded software in mobile apps, according to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Attorney General Paxton says the companies didn't...

The new rules for AI and encrypted messaging, with Mallory Knodel (Lock and Code S06E01)

This week on the Lock and Code podcast … The era of artificial intelligence everything is here, and with it, come everyday surprises into exactly where the next AI tools might pop up. There are major corporations pushing customer support functions onto AI chatbots, Big Tech platforms offering AI...

Pallet liquidation scams and how to recognize them

Pallet liquidation scams target people looking to purchase pallets of supposedly discounted merchandise, often from major retailers like Amazon. Groups that engage in pallet liquidation sales are rampant on social media and it’s hard to discern the scammers from the legitimate ones to be honest,...

AI-generated malvertising “white pages” are fooling detection engines

This is no secret, online criminals are leveraging artificial intelligence AI and large language models LLMs in their malicious schemes. While AI tends to be abused to trick people i.e. deepfakes in order to gain something, sometimes, it is meant to defeat computer security programs. With AI, thi...

Europol takes down criminal data hub Manson Market in busy month for law enforcement

A coordinated action between several European law enforcement agencies shut down an online marketplace called Manson Market that sold stolen data to any interested cybercriminal. What made this market attractive for cybercriminals was that they could buy data sorted by region and account balance...

Americans urged to use encrypted messaging after large, ongoing cyberattack

A years-long infiltration into the systems of eight telecom giants, including AT&T and Verizon, allowed a state sponsored actor to steal vast amounts of data on where, when and who individuals have been communicating with. Speaking to Reuters, a senior US official said the attack telecommunicatio...

An air fryer, a ring, and a vacuum get brought into a home. What they take out is your data (Lock and Code S05E24)

This week on the Lock and Code podcast… The month, a consumer rights group out of the UK posed a question to the public that they’d likely never considered: Were their air fryers spying on them? By analyzing the associated Android apps for three separate air fryer models from three different...

QuickBooks popup scam still being delivered via Google ads

Accounting software QuickBooks, by Intuit, is a popular target for India-based scammers, only rivaled for top spot by the classic Microsoft tech support scams. We've seen two main lures, both via Google ads: the first one is simply a website promoting online support for QuickBooks and shows a pho...

Malicious QR codes sent in the mail deliver malware

Physical letters that contain a QR code to trick people into downloading malware are being sent through the mail, according to a warning issued by The Swiss National Cyber Security Centre NCSC. The letters are sent as if they come from the official Swiss Federal Office of Meteorology and...

Scammer robs homebuyers of life savings in $20 million theft spree

A 33-year-old Nigerian man living in the UK and his co-conspirators defrauded over 400 would-be home buyers in the US. In the initial phase, Babatunde Francis Ayeni and his criminal gang targeted US title companies, real estate agents, and real estate attorneys. Employees of these companies were...

Warning: Online shopping threats to avoid this Black Friday and Cyber Monday

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Hello again, FakeBat: popular loader returns after months-long hiatus

The web browser, and search engines in particular, continue to be a popular entry point to deliver malware to users. While we noted a decrease in loaders distributed via malvertising for the past 3 months, today's example is a reminder that threat actors can quickly switch back to tried and teste...

City of Columbus breach affects around half a million citizens

A ransomware attack against the City of Columbus, Ohio—which drew public scrutiny following the city government's attempt to silence a researcher who told the public about the attack—has received a little more detail from an unexpected source: The Attorney General for the state of Maine. In a dat...

Internet Archive attackers email support users: “Your data is now in the hands of some random guy”

Those who hacked the Internet Archive haven't gone away. Users of the Internet Archive who have submitted helpdesk tickets are reporting replies to the tickets from the hackers themselves. Internet Archive, most known for its Wayback Machine, is a digital library that allows users to look at...

23andMe will retain your genetic information, even if you delete the account

Deleting your personal data from 23andMe is proving to be hard. There are good reasons for people wanting to delete their data from 23andMe: The DNA testing platform has a lot of problems, so let’s start with a recap. A little over a year ago, cybercriminals put up information belonging to as man...

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...

MoneyGram confirms customer data breach

Money transfer company MoneyGram has notified its customers of a data breach in which it says certain customers had their personal information taken between September 20 and 22, 2024. The investigation into the incident that was discovered on September 27 is still ongoing, and the number of...

Comcast and Truist Bank customers impacted by debt collector’s breach

A data breach at Financial Business and Consumer Solutions FBCS, a US debt collection agency, has led to the loss of data of some Comcast Cable Communications and Truist Bank customers. FBCS is in the business of collecting unpaid debts on behalf of its customers. The data breach occurred in...

Millions of Kia vehicles were vulnerable to remote attacks with just a license plate number

In June of 2024 security researchers uncovered a set of vulnerabilities in the Kia dealer portal that allowed them to remotely take over any Kia vehicle built after 2013—and all they needed was a license plate number. According to the researchers: "These attacks could be executed remotely on any...

Walmart customers scammed via fake shopping lists, threatened with arrest

Shopping online or attempting to get in touch with a store is a little bit like walking on a minefield: you might get lucky or take a wrong step and get scammed. Case in point, a malicious ad campaign is abusing Walmart Lists, a kind of virtual shopping list customers can share with family and...

Payment provider data breach exposes credit card information of 1.7 million customers

Payment provider Slim CD has disclosed a security incident that may have exposed the full credit card information of anyone paying at a merchant that uses Slim CD’s services. The Florida-based gateway system, which allows merchants to take any kind of electronic payment, said on June 15 it notice...

“We will hold them accountable”: General Motors sued for selling customer driving data to third parties

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued General Motors GM for the unlawful collection and sale of over 1.5 million Texans’ private driving data to insurance companies without their knowledge or consent. In June, the Attorney General AG announced he had opened an investigation into several car...

AI device Rabbit r1 logged user interactions without an option to erase them before selling

Rabbit, the manufacturer of the Artificial Intelligence AI assistant r1 has issued a security advisory telling users its found a potential security risk. If a user loses or sells their device, a person in possession of the r1 could potentially jailbreak the device and gain access to files that...

A week in security (July 1 – July 7)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Ticketmaster hackers release stolen ticket barcodes for Taylor Swift Eras Tour Authy phone numbers accessed by cybercriminals, warns Twilio Affirm says Evolve Bank data breach also compromised some of its customers Prudential Financial data breach impacts 2.5 milli...

FBI warns of multiple ransomware attacks on same victim

The Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI has released a notification that highlights two trends emerging across the ransomware environment. The trends the FBI says it's noticed since July 2023 are: Multiple ransomware attacks on the same victim in close date proximity. New data destruction tactics...

Tampa General Hospital half thwarts ransomware attack, but still loses patient data

The Tampa General Hospital TGH has promised to reach out to individuals whose information has been stolen by a ransomware group. In a cybersecurity notice, TGH said it noticed unusual activity on its computer systems on May 31, 2023. "Fortunately, TGHs monitoring systems and experienced technolog...

Ransomware making big money through "big game hunting"

Ransomware generates big money for the groups behind it, with new research confirming some of the scale of the problem. Chainalysis, a blockchain research firm, looked at data from monitored cryptocurrency wallets, concluding that around $449 million has been taken from victims in the last six...

Royal Mail schools LockBit in leaked negotiation

The LockBit group has finally given up any prospect of extracting a ransom from Royal Mail and published the files it stole from the company in a recent ransomware attack. The leak brings weeks of negotiations to a close, leaving Royal Mail without a decryptor, and LockBit without a payday...

A week in security (June 15 – June 21)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Nearly 15,000 infected websites cleaned in SocGholish crackdown Apple patches Beats Studio Buds flaw that could turn earbuds into a wiretap Microsoft working on a fix for RoguePlanet, a flaw that grants full PC control Retro gaming fans are the new target for fake...

Kodak confirms breach as ShinyHunters’ leak threat reaches deadline

The Eastman Kodak Company Kodak confirmed to BleepingComputer that it is investigating a security breach after the ShinyHunters extortion group claimed responsibility for the incident. Kodak is the latest organization to land on the group's leak site. ShinyHunters claims it stole more than 2.2...

Google can be liable for false AI Overviews, court rules

A German court has ruled that Google can be held directly responsible for defamatory claims produced by its AI Overviews. Basically, the court said that telling people they should double-check AI search results is not enough to deny liability for what those results say. This kind of warning may n...

Meta’s face-recognition code raises new concerns about smart glasses

Meta’s smart glasses are once again at the center of a privacy debate due to face recognition. WIRED reports that Meta had quietly embedded unreleased face-recognition code, internally called “NameTag,” into its Meta AI companion app, which powers the company’s smart glasses. The code was not...

Update Chrome: Google patches actively exploited vulnerability and 73 others

Google has issued updates for the Chrome browser, patching a number of high‑severity vulnerabilities. The update includes fixes for 74 vulnerabilities, including one that is being actively exploited in the wild. The stable channel has been updated to 149.0.7827.102/.103 for Windows/Mac, and...

Actively exploited cPanel bug exposes millions of websites to takeover

Security researchers are warning about a newly discovered vulnerability in the widely used web server management software cPanel and WebHost Manager WHM. This is a critical, actively exploited authentication-bypass bug in cPanel/WHM that lets attackers gain administrative access to the interface...

Hackers stole hundreds of thousands of Roblox accounts: Here’s what to do

More than 610,000 Roblox accounts were reportedly stolen. Was yours or your child's among them? Ukrainian police arrested three individuals in Lviv who allegedly orchestrated one of the largest Roblox account theft operations to date. Between October 2025 and January 2026, the hacking group is sa...

Chinese engineer stole US military and NASA software for years

International espionage isn't always about sophisticated malware and zero-day bugs. Sometimes it's as simple as pretending to be someone else asking for a favor. For four years, a Chinese aerospace engineer did just that. Dozens of researchers at NASA, the US military, and major universities hand...

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...