Update Windows: Record Patch Tuesday fixes flaw already under attack

Microsoft’s October Patch Tuesday release addresses a record-breaking 1,413 vulnerabilities, including an actively exploited Windows Shell zero-day and two other publicly disclosed flaws. Just when you thought a previous record would stand for a while, Microsoft comes out again with the largest...

Fake Calendly “Meta Careers” pages steal Facebook and Google logins

We found a wave of websites posing as Calendly booking pages for job interviews at Meta. Visitors pick a slot for a 30-minute phone call with a recruiter, fill in their details, and pass what looks like a CAPTCHA. Then the page asks them to log in to Facebook. The interview is fake. The pages are...

Police receive fake murder tip from Anthropic’s Claude AI

Police tip hotlines already have their fair share of crank callers. Apparently they now have to contend with crank AI agents as well. AI agents have already been caught hacking software companies, breaching an Australian government portal, and trying to hack a Canadian government website. Now...

Grindr users’ sensitive data shared through ad auctions without valid consent

Norway’s privacy regulator Datatilsynet has fined advertising technology company Xandr 92 million Norwegian kroner, approximately $9.6 million, for unlawfully processing and sharing sensitive information about Grindr users. While the decision concerns users in Norway, the data-sharing practices...

Hackers heat up supermarket fridges, spoiling food across France

A cyberattack has forced hundreds of supermarkets across France to throw away refrigerated and frozen food after attackers interfered with the systems that keep it cold. The attack caused significant financial losses and food waste. Some installations reportedly reached temperatures of around 50°...

Scammers know your name, and they’re counting on you to reply

Scammers are finding different ways to use personal details exposed in data breaches to lure people into conversations. Last week, we showed how a Facebook Marketplace listing used the recipient’s name to make a text asking “Is this still available?” more convincing. The one we got this week was ...

How “123456” became the key to almost 9 million personal records

An attacker reportedly used a leaked password to abuse a company’s legitimate access to Denmark’s population register CPR. The weak password is remarkable, but the failure to spot millions of unusual searches made the breach worse. The CPR administration states it identified a serious security...

Phishing emails are baiting your AI assistant

You ignored the suspicious email. You didn’t open the attachment, click the link, or reply to the sender. Then you asked your AI assistant to summarize your inbox. Could the message you wisely avoided find its way back onto your to-do list—only this time presented as an urgent recommendation from...

A week in security (October 5 – October 11)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: ASOS breach update: Hackers stole customer details and shopping searches Attackers hijack country-code domains to impersonate Google and other services Amazon has an uncomfortably personal profile on you Meta’s Muse AI files away your friendships, arguments, and...

ASOS breach update: Hackers stole customer details and shopping searches

The customer data stolen from global fashion retailer ASOS includes more than just names and contact details, raising questions about its early reassurances. As we reported earlier this week, ASOS customers received a push notification through the ASOS app alleging that the company had been hacke...

Attackers hijack country-code domains to impersonate Google and other services

According to Google, attackers compromised infrastructure behind three country-code domain namespaces—.gh Ghana, .sl Sierra Leone, and .as American Samoa—and used it to obtain unauthorized HTTPS certificates for Google domains and other organizations. These domain endings aren’t limited to sites...

Amazon has an uncomfortably personal profile on you

Amazon’s “About You” page reveals what it thinks it knows about you—and you can’t simply switch it off. Dexerto reports that one shopper discovered her profile included the observation: “has flat buttocks” She suggested this might relate to a previous purchase of “butt scrunch leggings.” Whatever...

Meta’s Muse AI files away your friendships, arguments, and secrets

If you thought that having companies trawling your social media, browsing history, and TV habits for behavioral clues was bad, sit tight. Meta is just getting started. Its Muse personal AI agent is taking surveillance to the next level. TIME magazine analyzed the software’s internal instructions...

Google issues Android security updates: who can get them and how

Google has published security fixes for Android. The October updates are available for Android operating system versions 14, 15, 16, 16-qpr2, and 17 where “qpr” stands for Quarterly Platform Release. QPRs are interim updates Google pushes out between major yearly cycles. These Android security...

AI-powered phishkit arms criminals with account-hijacking tools in 10 minutes

In August, the Malwarebytes research team reported on a new malicious turnkey kit that makes it possible for almost anyone to launch a sophisticated online scam. The kit was not simply a fake website. It bundled the command center, victim tracking, and administrative tools into a ready-to-use...

Update Chrome and ChromeOS to fix critical security issues

Google has released updates for the Chrome browser and the ChromeOS operating system. On October 6, Google released a Stable Channel Update for Desktop. This is the most important one for desktop users. It brings Chrome to version 155.0.8059.39 for Linux and versions 154.0.8037.39/.40 for Windows...

Another ShinyHunters suspect arrested

The net is tightening around the Shiny Hunters cybercrime group following the reported arrest of a second member. On Saturday, Reuters said that 16 year-old Saif al-Din Khader had been arrested in Jordan and was in FBI custody. This follows the arrest earlier in September of another member in the...

ASOS “hackers” send push notifications to customers

Thousands of global fashion retailer ASOS customers have received a push notification through the ASOS app this morning alleging that the company has been hacked. The notification, addressed to ASOS’s data protection officer and IT, says: “ASOS HACKED Dear Asos DPO and IT, we have fully compromis...

Facebook Marketplace scam uses your name and number

Facebook users are reporting receiving a message with a fake Facebook Marketplace listing that has their name as the seller. It works like this. You receive a message in this case iMessage asking “Is this still available for purchase?” Attached to the message is a fabricated Facebook Marketplace...

Domino’s customers targeted in credential stuffing attacks

Domino’s Pizza customers tell us they have received emails saying they account has been accessed by a third party. Domino’s says its internal systems weren’t breached, but that individual accounts were logged into using a password and email combination stolen from another online account owned by...

Google pauses open source bug bounty program after rise in AI submissions

Companies like Google and Microsoft are finding much bigger numbers of vulnerabilities in their own products as a result of AI. But the same technology is leading to public reporting programs becoming overwhelmed by the mass submission of speculative, duplicated, or hallucinated findings. Now,...

Proposed anti-Flock bills could spell trouble for license plate readers

Automated license plate readers ALPRs are cameras that photograph passing vehicles, read their number plates, and typically log the time, location, and vehicle details. On their own, the images might be used to find a stolen car or locate a suspect. But lately there have been a lot of concerns...

A week in security (September 28 – October 4)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Fake xStocks, Pendle, and other sites bait crypto users with rewards votes Shadow AI explained: The work shortcut that could leak your company’s secrets Convincing Free Mobile phishing emails appear after data breach Malwarebytes earns another Top Product award in...

A week in security (September 28 – October 4)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Fake xStocks, Pendle, and other sites bait crypto users with rewards votes Shadow AI explained: The work shortcut that could leak your company’s secrets Convincing Free Mobile phishing emails appear after data breach Malwarebytes earns another Top Product award in...

Fake xStocks, Pendle, and other sites bait crypto users with rewards votes

We found 70 websites that impersonate legitimate crypto projects that invite visitors to vote on the date of an upcoming rewards distribution. The pages copy the look of the real sites closely, and on most of them the offer is small and believable: Cast a vote, and as an active voter you get a...

Shadow AI explained: The work shortcut that could leak your company’s secrets

Using an AI chatbot, assistant, or browser to speed up your work is tempting, but doing it without your employer’s knowledge can put sensitive data at risk. You’re swamped, so you paste a long email thread into a free chatbot and ask for a summary. It works, it saves an hour, and nobody notices...

Convincing Free Mobile phishing emails appear after data breach

Free Mobile, one of France’s main cellular providers, was fined €27 million by France’s data protection regulator, the CNIL, in January over failures to protect customer data. The October 2024 breach allowed an unauthorized party to access sensitive customer records, including bank account detail...

Convincing Free Mobile phishing emails appear after data breach

Free Mobile, one of France’s main cellular providers, was fined €27 million by France’s data protection regulator, the CNIL, in January over failures to protect customer data. The October 2024 breach allowed an unauthorized party to access sensitive customer records, including bank account detail...

Malwarebytes earns another Top Product award in independent testing

Every few months, Malwarebytes gets a chance to test its mettle against real-world threats in an independent laboratory setting. And the latest round of results gives us plenty to celebrate. Malwarebytes earned a perfect 18 out of 18 and received another Top Product award from AV-TEST. We also...

Pentagon breach exposes Social Security numbers and military records of millions

The US government is alerting millions of people that their personal information was stolen during a breach of the Pentagon’s personnel records at the Defense Manpower Data Center DMDC. The DMDC is a central US Department of Defense DoD organization that manages personnel records, ID credentials,...

Losing gamblers pushed to bet more by DraftKings’ AI, report says

Two separate investigations have raised concerns about betting site DraftKings’ marketing to target problem gamblers, including its use of AI. On September 19, the New York Times reported that the company’s machine learning model targeted people who were more likely to respond to betting promotio...

Hackers steal protective order and foster care records from Arizona courts

“Arizona’s court system was targeted by a cyber attack from criminal hackers or their bots.” This is how the Arizona Supreme Court announced that hackers had attacked the state’s court system and stolen the personal information of “many Arizonans.” The court says the attack began with a phishing...

Your car’s app could be telling Big Tech who you are and where you go

A study testing 21 cars from 19 brands and 30 companion apps found connections to advertising and tracking companies, and evidence that some apps shared sensitive personal data. Modern cars can unlock remotely, route around traffic, stream entertainment, summon roadside help, and cool or heat the...

Meta’s Muse sent a Facebook Marketplace buyer to a seller’s home

A Facebook Marketplace buyer arrived at a seller’s apartment to collect a keyboard. The seller wasn’t home and didn’t know anyone was coming. Meta’s AI assistant Muse had handled the conversation, shared his address, and arranged the visit without telling him. We often write about AI misalignment...

Update your iPhone, iPad, or Mac: Flaw could run attackers’ code

Apple has released updates for iPhones, iPads, and Macs to fix a flaw that could let an attacker run code when a device processes a malicious file. Apple says it may have been used in highly targeted attacks against iPhone users running versions of iOS before iOS 27. The fix is in iOS and iPadOS...

Fake iPhone Duo preorder scam triggers DarkSword attack

Apple announced its first foldable iPhone on September 9, and scammers were ready to ‘deliver’ one before anyone could buy it. Most of what we found around the launch of the iPhone Duo and iPhone 18 Pro was familiar fraud. But one fake preorder page was different. The fake Apple-style page offers...

Humans are reviewing Copilot users’ bizarre and abusive image-editing requests

A reminder for anyone who thinks their AI chats are private: A human may see what they upload. A report from 404 Media this week describes contractors reviewing Copilot users’ photos, editing requests, and the images Copilot produces. Some of what they see is disturbing. The third-party companies...

OpenAI pauses work on top AI models after agent slips past internet controls

OpenAI’s latest containment failure adds to a pattern that may force the company to make an unpopular decision. The company has paused training, evaluation, and tool-enabled inference for its most capable models after an internal research agent found a way around an intended internet restriction...

FBI agents’ blood tests and doctors’ notes surface after breach

BBC News reports it has seen samples of stolen FBI agents’ medical examinations. The “fitness-for-work” reports identify FBI agents by name and address, and reveal even more personal details. They include blood and urine test results and doctors’ notes mentioning high cholesterol, blood in the...

A week in security (September 21 – September 27)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: LinkedIn adds new checks for fake profiles and work histories Kothamine malware uses Tailscale’s tailcat to evade network detection Criminals turn placeholder domain into ClickFix trap That shipping rebate offer may come with a monthly charge OpenAI agent breached...

LinkedIn adds new checks for fake profiles and work histories

LinkedIn is adding trust and verification features aimed at making fake professional identities, invented work histories, and company impersonation harder to pull off. The company is responding to an environment in which generative AI enables imposters to create an entirely made-up professional...

Kothamine malware uses Tailscale’s tailcat to evade network detection

We discovered an undocumented remote-access Trojan RAT called Kothamine Agent. It supports more than 30 commands and it gives attackers control of an infected Windows computer: they can run commands, read and change files, and add new capabilities. Some versions can also steal browser data and...

Criminals turn placeholder domain into ClickFix trap

A domain that has long appeared in software documentation, code examples, and developer test material is now being used to push a ClickFix attack against Windows users. A placeholder domain stands in for a website in an example. The best-known is probably example.com. Another, third-party.com, ha...

That shipping rebate offer may come with a monthly charge

Thanks to Malwarebytes research engineerStefan Dasic for his help with this article. A name like ShipmentsFree suggests a way to save on shipping. The service does offer shipping rebates, but its Better Business Bureau BBB complaint record shows that some customers did not realize they had also...

OpenAI agent breached Australian government site, took months to report it

An OpenAI agent didn’t take “no” for an answer when it encountered a government website’s access controls. It got through, prompting Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to raise his concerns directly with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The BBC reports that an OpenAI agent gained unauthorized acce...

New Browser Guard features add protection before and after you click

Most of us click on search results without knowing much about the website we’re about to visit. And once we’re there, it’s not always obvious when something isn’t quite right. Now, we’ve added two new features to Malwarebytes Browser Guard that will do even more to keep you safe online. Search...

Update Chrome: 108 security fixes for desktop, new release for Android

Over the last few days, Google issued several different Chrome updates. On September 22, Google released a Stable Channel Update for Desktop. This is the most important one for desktop users. It brings Chrome to version 154.0.8037.57 for Linux and versions 154.0.8037.57/.58 for Windows and Mac. T...

Google’s location data privacy failures draw a €403 million fine

The Irish Data Protection Commission DPC has fined Google €403 million $459 million for violating European privacy law. The penalty follows a six-year inquiry into Google’s management of user location data between May 2018 and February 2020. During that time, Google collected users’ location data...

How device code phishing gives scammers access to your account

You receive an invitation to a password-protected meeting, a secure chatroom, or a shared document. To get access, it says, you need to enter a short code on a sign-in page for one of your accounts. The message claims the code will let you open the document or join the meeting. In fact, it approv...

Fake Claude Max giveaway hides a Google account phishing trap

Phishing follows whatever people want at the moment, and right now that includes AI subscriptions they don’t have to pay for. We recently uncovered a new variation on this theme: A fake Claude Max giveaway that uses a convincing Google sign-in window to steal login information. Claude’s paid plan...