"Just awful" experiment points suicidal teens at chatbot

After getting in hot water for using an AI chatbot to provide mental health counseling, non-profit startup Koko has now been criticized for experimenting with young adults at risk of harming themselves. Worse, the young adults were unaware they were test subjects. Motherboard reports the experime...

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...

A week in security (February 27 - March 5)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Fighting online censorship, or, encryption's latest surprise use-case, with Mallory Knodel: Lock and Code S04E05 How to work from home securely, the NSA way TikTok probed over child privacy practices iPhone users targeted in phone AND data theft campaign US Marshal...

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 ...

Arrested: Fearmongering data thieves who victimized thousands of businesses

The Dutch police have announced the arrest of three more suspects in one of the biggest data extortion cases to date. The men, all aged between 18 and 21, were allegedly involved in extorting businesses and selling stolen data to other criminals. During a two-year investigation the police learned...

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...

Malwarebytes recognized as endpoint security leader by G2

G2 has released their Winter 2023 reports, ranking Malwarebytes as the leader across a number of endpoint protection categories. Based on verified customer reviews, Malwarebytes has been ranked 1 over top EDR vendors for endpoint malware and antivirus protection, detection and remediation of...

$800,000 recovered from Business Email Compromise attack

We continue to see the damaging repercussions of business email compromise BEC impacting organisations across the US and elsewhere. The Houston Chronicle reports that law enforcement seized $800,000 from a bank account used for pillaging funds from a construction management company. The attack BE...

Cybersecurity and privacy tips you can teach your 5+-year-old

Everything we teach our kids starts at home--we parents are their first teachers, after all. So, why wait for them to start going to school to start learning about cybersecurity and online privacy? Though it's hardly news that more and more children are being introduced to mobile computing device...

Microsoft ends extended support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 today

Time has finally run out for Windows 7 Professional and Enterprise users. Microsoft will stop providing its Extended Security Updates ESU program for the OS version today, January 10. When the company ended its mainstream support for Windows 7 three years ago, it also offered an ESU program to...

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"...

A week in security (December 19 - 25)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: 4 over-hyped security vulnerabilities of 2022 Chasing cryptocurrency through cyberspace, with Brian Carter: Lock and Code S03E26 Restaurant platform SevenRooms confirms data breach Adult popunder campaign used in mainstream ad fraud scheme Malwarebytes earns AV-TES...

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...

Man scammed IRL for a phone he sold online

If youre looking to sell an item which youve advertised online, be on your guard. Even when everything looks to be working as it should, things can go wrong very quickly as one unfortunate IT graduate recently discovered. You would think that theres no way the in-person sale of an expensive devic...

Security awareness campaign highlights things your bank will never say

If you like anti-phishing efforts, hashtags, and confusing but colourful video games, youll be interested to know that a security initiative involving all three is now live. The American Bankers Association and other banks in the US are involved in an awareness campaign tied in with National...

A week in security (October 3 – 9)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Romance scammer deepfakes Mark Ruffalo to con elderly artist Actively exploited vulnerability in Bitbucket Server and Data Center Ransomware-affected school district refuses to pay, gets stolen data released Ransomware review: September 2022 Huge increase in smishi...

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...

Morgan Stanley's years-long "extensive failure" to protect customer data ends in huge fine

On Tuesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission SEC charged financial company Morgan Stanley a $35M fine for "the firm's extensive failures, over five years, to protect the personal identifying information, or PII, of approximately 15 million customers. The company agreed to settle the penalty...

How to protect yourself and your kids against device theft

In no time at all, kids will be going back to school or starting college. And while gearing up for this, its very important to be aware of the threat from device loss in the school environment. Maybe you are away at university for the first time and have a new place to live, or maybe your kids ha...

Facebook gets round tracking privacy measure by encrypting links

A form of individual tracking specific to your web browser is at the heart of a currently contested privacy battle, and one which Facebook has just got the upper hand to. This type of tracking involves adding additional parameters to the URLs that you click on a daily basis. When you click one of...

The FTC will go after companies misusing location, health, and other sensitive data

After the overturning of Roe V Wade, many feared that using, having access to, and sharing reproductive and sexual health data—once done freely—would be outlawed with the practice of abortion in many states. To protect such data from falling into the wrong hands, Congresswoman Sara Jacobs D-CA...

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...

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...

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...

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...

YTStealer targets YouTube content creators

Researchers are reporting the discovery of malware targeting YouTub content creators. The aim is to compromise accounts and then take over the victims channels completely. The malware, dubbed YTStealer, has one game plan: Grabbing authentication cookies. A site gives you an authentication cookie...

RansomHouse claims to have stolen at least 450GB of AMD’s data

AMD is investigating the claim that the RansomHouse extortion group has its hands on more than 450GB of the companys data. AMDs breach revelation came to light after RansomHouse teased on Telegram about selling data belonging to a popular three-letter company that starts with the letter A. The...

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...

Apple’s passkeys attempt to solve the password problem

The recent Apple Worldwide Developers Conference WWDC revealed another teasing of what has been referred to as "the end of passwords forever". Passkeys are a "new biometric sign-in standard". Biometrics in security circles are used for things like identity cards, building access, and so on. This...

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...

If you get an email saying “Item stopped due to unpaid customs fee”, it’s a fake

Our spam traps recently caught a phishing scam that neatly illustrates some of the tactics scammers use routinely to avoid both human intuition, and automatic detection. The scam starts with an unsolicited email, of course… The scam email is ostensibly from the Post Office, an instantly...

Instagram verification services: What are the dangers?

Instagram, like other social platforms, has a verification system for high profile accounts. A verified badge means Instagram has confirmed that the account is the authentic presence of a public figure, celebrity or brand. Have you ever wanted to get your own account verified? We noticed a large...

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...

Steer clear of these Instagram “Get rich with Bitcoin” scams

I don’t know about you, but I open Instagram to look at cool photos of pets, not to make a fortune via suspicious claims of riches by strangers. Despite this, following someone whose photos I liked resulted in a very peculiar message. It’s possible I waved goodbye to a path to untold riches. Mayb...

Apple’s child safety features are coming to a Messages app near you

Apple will soon be rolling out its promised child safety features in the Messages app for users in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK. The announcement comes four months after the features initial launch in the US on the iOS, iPad, and macOS devices. To make communicating with Messages...

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...

Cash App breached by a former employee could affect millions

In December last year, the customer information of Cash App users was accessed by a former employee of Block, the company behind the popular mobile payment service app. This was revealed in a very recent filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission SEC, which shows that the former employee...

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...

Watch out for LinkedIn fakes who want to get connected

Despite continued warnings of deepfake chaos during major events, things haven’t worked out the way some thought. Those video deepfakes are bad, and they remain bad. Quite simply, nobody is fooled - or at least, nobody able to make a mistaken snap judgement in a way that matters. As much as we ov...

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...

Ransomware: February 2022 review

The Malwarebytes Threat Intelligence team continuously monitors the threat landscape to stay on top of existing and emerging attacks. In this February 2022 ransomware review, we go over some the most successful ransomware incidents based on both open source and dark web intelligence. BlackByte...

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,...

Android malware BRATA can wipe devices

Cleafy, a cybersecurity firm specializing in online fraud, has published new details about banking Trojan BRATA Brazilian Remote Access Tool, Android, a known malware strain that first became widespread in 2019. BRATA is now being used to perform factory resets on victims machines. Its rare for...

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...

Night Sky: the new corporate ransomware demanding a sky high ransom

Theres a new ransomware in town—isnt there always?—and its, unsurprisingly, after corporation-sized businesses. Its called Night Sky, and it was first spotted and revealed by MalwareHunterTeam, a group on Twitter who hunts malware online, on the first day of 2022. First day of the year, and a new...

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...

CronRAT targets Linux servers with e-commerce attacks

There’s an interesting find over at the Sansec blog, wrapping time and date manipulation up with a very smart RAT attack. The file, named CronRAT, isn’t an e-commerce attack compromising payment terminals in physical stores. Rather, it looks to swipe payment details by going after vulnerable web...

SharkBot Android banking Trojan cleans users out

Researchers have discovered and analyzed a new Android banking Trojan that allows attackers to steal sensitive banking information such as user credentials, personal information, current balance, and even to perform gestures on the infected device. According to the researchers, SharkBot...

Instagram’s memorialize feature abused to memorialize…Instagram’s boss

The mechanisms for memorialising the social network accounts of people who’ve died haven’t really suffered a lot of scrutiny up until now. I’ve done a fair amount of research on the processes and perils we face in the digitally deceased age. Traditionally, the biggest issues in this space tended ...