Watch out for the Steam skin “free knife” scam

Have you ever had someone run up to you in the street and insist you take their free knife? I hope not, because that’s a good way to wind up in a 60-minute police procedural drama. In video game land, however, anything goes. A certain type of scam is showing signs of activity at the moment and it...

Google Play sign-ins can be abused to track another person’s movements

Even people that have been involved in cybersecurity for over 20 years make mistakes. I’m not sure whether that is a comforting thought for anyone or whether everyone should be worried now. But it is what it is and I make it a habit of owning my mistakes. So here goes. With the aid of Google I wa...

WhatsApp is testing a new warning for scam messages

Meta announced it’s rolling out a new feature for WhatsApp users in the fight against scammers. Scam Alert is an optional beta feature that uses an on-device machine-learning model to flag likely scam messages from people who are not in a user’s contacts. The Scam Alert feature arrives as scammer...

Sexual predators targeting online accounts for intimate images, FBI warns

The FBI has issued a Public Service Announcement PSA warning that criminals are breaking into social media and personal accounts to steal and distribute intimate images and videos without consent. The FBI refers to this type of content as non-consensual intimate images NCII. The stolen material m...

Love/hate relationship: The AI affair. Young people love AI, but it’s breaking their trust

Young people use AI for everything. From schoolwork to interview prep, relationship advice to shopping decisions, the technology has become part of how young people live. For the most digitally fluent generation ever, AI is a competitive edge, a creative partner, and an always-on assistant. But t...

Claude for Chrome flaw could let rogue extensions access your Gmail

First reported in May, ClaudeBleed is basically a “fake remote control” problem. A sneaky browser extension can pretend to be Claude’s own website and secretly drive the Claude for Chrome extension to read your data and take action in your accounts. The Claude for Chrome browser extension is an...

Browser Guard gets even better with Access Control

Have you ever been on a website when a pop-up suddenly asked for access to your camera, microphone, location, or notifications? Whether you clicked “allow,” dismissed it, or just wondered why it appeared, those permission requests aren’t always harmless. Some sites can abuse those permissions. Wi...

Booking.com breach gives scammers what they need to target guests

Travel companies love telling you your data is safe. Booking.com just reminded everyone why that's a hard promise to keep. The Amsterdam-based booking giant began notifying customers on April 13 that "unauthorized third parties" had accessed guest reservation data. The compromised information...

That dream job offer from Coca-Cola or Ferrari? It’s a trap for your passwords

As layoffs surge and job seekers flood the market, phishing campaigns impersonating major brands, including Coca-Cola and Ferrari, are ramping up—and they’re more sophisticated than ever. The first scam we found uses a convincing booking page to collect personal details, then tricks victims into...

Blocking children from social media is a badly executed good idea

While we can probably all agree that there is more than enough proof that social media is bad for the mental health of our children, the methods we are trying to block or ban them seem to do more harm than good. Across the world, lawmakers are tripping over each other to be seen “doing something”...

Apple expands “DarkSword” patches to iOS 18.7.7

Apple widened its latest iOS 18 security update to cover far more iPhones and iPads, specifically to stop real‑world DarkSword attacks that can compromise a device from a single website visit. After researchers published their findings about the DarkSword attacks and an exploit kit abusing the...

WhatsApp on Windows users targeted in new campaign, warns Microsoft

Microsoft researchers found a campaign that abuses WhatsApp attachments to sneak a script onto Windows machines which will lead to the attacker gaining remote control. WhatsApp offers a desktop application for Windows and macOS, which users can synchronize with their mobile devices. Desktop...

How searching for a VPN could mean handing over your work login details

This blog is about how trying to do the “right thing” can lead you straight into a trap. People searching for a VPN ended up downloading credential-stealing malware. From the victim’s perspective, their trust was exploited at every step: trust in search engines, in familiar logos, in digital...

Quiz sites trick users into enabling unwanted browser notifications

Our support team flagged a number of customers who suspected their device might be infected with malware, but Malwarebytes scans came up empty. When the customers provided screenshots, our Malware Removal Support team quickly recognized the format as web push notifications. The reason the scans...

Pentagon ditches Anthropic AI over “security risk” and OpenAI takes over

On Friday the US Pentagon cut ties with Anthropic, the company behind Claude AI. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated the San Francisco-based company a "supply-chain risk to national security." The supply-chain risk designation means that no contractor, supplier, or partner doing business wi...

How to understand and avoid Advanced Persistent Threats

By definition, an advanced persistent threat APT is a prolonged, targeted attack on a specific victim with the intention to compromise their system and gain information from or about that target. About a decade ago, the term was mostly used for state-sponsored threat actors. I used threat actors...

The Conduent breach; from 10 million to 25 million (and counting)

The Conduent breach has quietly grown into one of the biggest third‑party data incidents in US history, and the real story now is how many different programs and employers are swept up in it, even for people who have never heard of Conduent. When we first covered this incident, public filings...

Password managers keep your passwords safe, unless…

I’m a big advocate of password managers. Granted, there are better alternatives for passwords like passkeys, but if a provider offers nothing but password options, which many do, you can’t do much about that. So, for the time being we seem to be stuck with passwords. Every reputable password...

A week in security (February 9 – February 15)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: How to find and remove credential-stealing Chrome extensions Fake shops target Winter Olympics 2026 fans Outlook add-in goes rogue and steals 4,000 credentials and payment data Child exploitation, grooming, and social media addiction claims put Meta on trial Apple...

Grok continues producing sexualized images after promised fixes

Journalists decided to test whether the Grok chatbot still generates non‑consensual sexualized images, even after xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, and X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, promised tighter safeguards. Unsurprisingly, it does. After scrutiny from...

Scam-checking just got easier: Malwarebytes is now in ChatGPT

If you’ve ever stared at a suspicious text, email, or link and thought “Is this a scam… or am I overthinking it?” Well, you’re not alone. Scams are getting harder to spot, and even savvy internet users get caught off guard. That’s why Malwarebytes is the first cybersecurity provider available...

Spammers abuse Zendesk to flood inboxes with legitimate-looking emails, but why?

Short answer: we have no idea. People are actively complaining that their mailboxes and queues are being flooded by emails coming from the Zendesk instances of trusted companies like Discord, Riot Games, Dropbox, and many others. Zendesk is a customer service and support software platform that...

A week in security (January 12 – January 18)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: WhisperPair exposes Bluetooth earbuds and headphones to tracking and eavesdropping Dutch police sell fake tickets to show how easily scams work "Reprompt" attack lets attackers steal data from Microsoft Copilot Phishing scammers are posting fake "account restricted...

Disney fined $10m for mislabeling kids’ YouTube videos and violating privacy law

Disney will pay a $10m settlement over allegations that it violated kids' privacy rights, the Federal Trade Commission FTC said this week. The agreement, first proposed in September 2025, resolves a dispute over Disney's labeling of child-targeted content on YouTube. The thousands of YouTube vide...

Malware in 2025 spread far beyond Windows PCs

This blog is part of a series highlighting new and concerning trends we noticed over the last year. Trends matter because they almost always provide a good indication of what 's coming next. If there’s one thing that became very clear in 2025, it’s that malware is no longer focused on Windows...

Two Chrome flaws could be triggered by simply browsing the web: Update now

Google issued an extra patch addressing two security vulnerabilities in Chrome, both of which can be triggered remotely by an attacker when a user visits a specially crafted, malicious web page. Chrome is by far the world’s most popular browser, with an estimated 3.4 billion users. That makes it ...

Photo booth flaw exposes people’s private pictures online

Photo booths are great. You press a button and get instant results. The same can’t be said, allegedly, for the security practices of at least one company operating them. A security researcher spent weeks trying to warn a photo booth operator about a vulnerability in its system. The flaw reportedl...

EU fines X $140m, tied to verification rules that make impostor scams easier

The European Commission slapped social networking company X with a €120 million $140 million fine last week for what it says was a lack of transparency with its European users. The fine, the first ever penalty under the EU's landmark Digital Services Act, addressed three specific violations with...

What the Flock is happening with license plate readers?

You’re driving home after another marathon day of work and kid-shuttling, nursing a lukewarm coffee in a mug that's trying too hard. As you turn onto your street, something new catches your eye. It's a tall pole with a small, boxy device perched on top. But it's not a bird-house and there's no...

Be careful responding to unexpected job interviews

One of our customers was contacted on LinkedIn about a job offer. The initial message was followed up by an email: “Thank you for your interest in the Senior Construction Manager position at company. After reviewing your background, we were impressed with your experience and would like to invite...

Are you paying more than other people? NY cracks down on surveillance pricing

When you search for a product online, you might think you're getting the same price as everyone else. Think again. Your price might be different based on everything from your location to what you've looked at online. Companies often use algorithms to set their prices that rely heavily on customer...

We opened a fake invoice and fell down a retro XWorm-shaped wormhole

Somebody forwarded an “invoice” email and asked me to check the attachment because it looked suspicious. Good instinct—it was, and what we found inside was a surprisingly old trick hiding a modern threat. What it does If the recipient had opened the attached Visual Basic Script .vbs file, it woul...

Phishing emails disguised as spam filter alerts are stealing logins

Cybercriminals are spoofing "email delivery" notifications to look like they came from spam filters inside your own organization. The goal is to lure you to a phishing site that steals login credentials—credentials that could unlock your email, cloud storage or other personal accounts. The email...

How Malwarebytes stops the ransomware attack that most security software can’t see

Imagine this scenario: Your protection software is running perfectly. Systems are protected, definitions are up to date, behavioral analysis is active. Then, suddenly, files across your network start getting encrypted. Backups are being deleted. Ransom notes appear across your machines. Your...

Malwarebytes aces PCMag Readers’ Choice Awards and AVLab Cybersecurity Foundation tests

Malwarebytes proudly topped three categories in PCMag’s 2025 Readers’ Choice Awards, recognized for exceptional protection and user satisfaction. We also earned the latest badge from AVLab Cybersecurity Foundation’s September “Advanced In-The-Wild Malware Test” by blocking 100% of malware samples...

How scammers use your data to create personalized tricks that work

Think of your digital footprint as your online shadow—the trail you leave behind whenever you browse, post, shop, or even appear in someone’s contact list. It’s your likes, reviews, comments, and all the little traces you didn’t mean to share. Together, they paint a picture of you—one that friend...

Atlas browser’s Omnibox opens up new privacy and security risks

It seems that with every new agentic browser we discover yet another way to abuse one. OpenAI recently introduced a ChatGPT based AI browser called Atlas. It didn’t take researchers long to find that the combined search and prompt bar—called the Omnibox—can be exploited. By pasting a specially...

Is AI moving faster than its safety net?

You’ve probably noticed that artificial intelligence, or AI, has been everywhere lately—news, phones, apps, even in your browser. It seems like everything suddenly wants to be “powered by AI.“ If it’s not, it’s considered old school and boring. It’s easy to get swept up in the promise: smarter...

A week in security (October 13 – October 19)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Prosper data breach puts 17 million people at risk of identity theft Under the engineering hood: Why Malwarebytes chose WordPress as its CMS Video call app Huddle01 exposed 600K+ user logs Mango discloses data breach at third-party provider Roku accused of selling...

Fake VPN and streaming app drops malware that drains your bank account

Security researchers are warning Android users to delete a fake VPN and streaming app that can let criminals take over their phones and drain their bank accounts. The app, Mobdro Pro IP TV + VPN, was discovered by researchers at Cleafy to be a malicious sideloaded app, not a legitimate VPN. Their...

California just put people back in control of their data

California's 2025 legislative session closed with 14 new privacy and AI-related bills. We’d like to highlight a few of the most relevant signed bills and encourage other states and countries to follow California’s example. Let’s go over some of the bills that were signed by the governor and how...

Is your computer mouse eavesdropping on you?

The short answer is: probably not, but theoretically it’s possible. Researchers at the University of California found a method they called Mic-E-Mouse, which turns your computer mouse into a spy that can listen in on your conversations. The method uses high-performance optical sensors in optical...

Hackers threaten parents: Get nursery to pay ransom or we leak your child’s data

Just when you think extortionists can’t sink any lower, along comes a lowlife that manages to surprise you. The BBC reported that a group calling itself "Radiant" claims to have stolen sensitive data related to around 8,000 children from nursery chain Kido, which operates in the UK, US, China, an...

Neon App pays users to record their phone calls, sells data for AI training [updated]

TechCrunch reports about a “bizarre app” inviting you to record and share your audio calls so that it can sell the data to AI companies. And if that’s not weird enough on its own, it’s ranking No. 2 in Apple's US app store at the time of writing. The name of the app is Neon Mobile and it promises...

Disrupted phishing service was after Microsoft 365 credentials

Microsoft and Cloudflare have disrupted a Phishing-as-a-Service operation, known as RaccoonO365. The primary goal of RaccoonO365 or Storm-2246 as Microsoft calls it was to rent out a phishing toolkit that specialized in stealing Microsoft 365 credentials. They were successful in at least 5,000...

Pre-approved GLP-1 prescription scam could be bad for your health

A co-worker received a text which is, unfortunately, becoming more common. The text pretends to come from a doctor and states a weight-loss medication prescription has been approved. “Good morning. This is Dr. Santos. I pre-approved your GLP1 prescription. You may start treatment as of 09/04...

WhatsApp fixes vulnerability used in zero-click attacks

WhatsApp says it has issued an update to patch a vulnerability that has been used in conjunction with an Apple vulnerability to target specific users and compromise their devices. Reportedly, attackers used this exploit against dozens of WhatsApp users, and WhatsApp has notified those affected:...

A week in security (August 25 – August 31)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Microsoft wants to automatically save your Word docs to the cloud "No place in our networks": FCC hangs up on thousands of voice operators in robocall war Claude AI chatbot abused to launch "cybercrime spree" Developer verification: a promised lift for Android...

Claude AI chatbot abused to launch “cybercrime spree”

Anthropic—the company behind the widely renowned coding chatbot, Claude—says it uncovered a large-scale extortion operation in which cybercriminals abused Claude to automate and orchestrate sophisticated attacks. The company issued a Threat Intelligence report in which it describes several...

77 malicious apps removed from Google Play Store

Google has removed 77 malicious apps from the Google Play Store. Before they were removed, researchers at ThreatLabz discovered the apps had been installed over 19 million times. One of the malware families discovered by the researchers is a banking Trojan known as Anatsa or TeaBot. This banking...