Dozens of Google products targeted by scammers via malicious search ads

In a previous blog, we saw criminals distribute malware via malicious ads for Google Authenticator. This time, brazen malvertisers went as far as impersonating Googles entire product line and redirecting victims to a fake Google home page. Clearly not afraid of poking the bear, they even used and...

Microsoft patches bug that could have allowed an attacker to revert your computer back to an older, vulnerable version

Microsoft has released a patch for a bug for a "downgrade attack" that was recently revealed by researchers at security conferences Black Hat and Def Con. What does that mean in layman terms? You: Let me check whether my system is fully updated Windows: Sure, all’s well Attacker: Chuckles and...

We’re making it easier for you to protect your identity

Things have changed in cybersecurity. Gone are the days when our only worry was downloading a virus. Now, 71% of people say having their data leaked and identity stolen is one of their biggest fears about being online. Sadly, they’re right to be concerned: Fraud losses hit $10 billion in 2023 up...

X accused of unlawfully using personal data of 60 million+ users to train its AI

In what may come as a surprise to nobody at all, theres been yet another complaint about using social media data to train Artificial Intelligence AI. This time the complaint is against X formerly Twitter and Grok, the conversational AI chatbot developed by Elon Musks company xAI. Grok is a large...

Malwarebytes awarded Parent Tested Parent Approved Seal of Approval

We’re delighted to say Malwarebytes has been awarded the Parent Tested Parent Approved Seal of Approval for product excellence. The Seal of Approval is given to products that have earned the trust of families, and serves as a quick and reliable indicator of quality and dependability for parents a...

Data theft forum admins busted after flashing their cash in a life of luxury

Two men without a clear source of income landed cyberfraud charges after being so flash with their ill-gotten cash that it gained the attention of the authorities. In 2022, Russian national Pavel Kublitskii and Kazakhstan national Alexandr Khodyrev arrived in Florida and requested asylum, which w...

AI girlfriends want to know all about you. So might ChatGPT (Lock and Code S05E17)

This week on the Lock and Code podcast… Somewhere out there is a romantic AI chatbot that wants to know everything about you. But in a revealing overlap, other AI tools—which are developed and popularized by far larger companies in technology—could crave the very same thing. For AI tools of any...

Google Manifest V3 and Malwarebytes Browser Guard

We wanted to update you on some changes that Google’s making, and what we’re doing in Browser Guard to keep you protected. Some of our customers have recently reported seeing messages that say Browser Guard may soon no longer be supported in their browser. Luckily, theres no need for you to worry...

A week in security (August 5 – August 11)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Security company ADT announces security breach of customer data Stolen data from scraping service National Public Data leaked online Android vulnerability used in targeted attacks patched by Google Men report more pressure and threats to share location and accounts...

Security company ADT announces security breach of customer data

Electronic surveillance equipment provider ADT filed a form 8-K with the Security and Exchange Commision SEC to report “a cybersecurity incident during which unauthorized actors illegally accessed certain databases containing ADT customer order information.” An 8-K is a report of unscheduled...

Stolen data from scraping service National Public Data leaked online

Cybercriminals are offering a large database for sale that may include your data without you even being aware of its existence. The stolen data comes from a data scraping service trading under the name “National Public Data” which was allegedly breached by a cybercriminal group by the name of...

Android vulnerability used in targeted attacks patched by Google

Google has released patches for 46 vulnerabilities in Android, including a remote code execution RCE vulnerability that it says has been used in limited, targeted attacks. You can find your device’s Android version number, security update level, and Google Play system level in your Settings app...

Men report more pressure and threats to share location and accounts with partners, research shows

Men report facing more pressure than women—and more threats of retaliation—to grant access to their locations and online accounts when in a committed relationship, according to a new analysis of data released this summer by Malwarebytes. The same analysis also revealed that, while men report more...

Magniber ransomware targets home users

If you’ve been following any news about ransomware, you may be under the impression that ransomware groups are only after organizations rather than individual people, and for the most part that’s true. However, Magniber is one ransomware that does target home users. And its back, with full force,...

A week in security (July 29 – August 4)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Threat actor impersonates Google via fake ad for Authenticator Scammers are impersonating cryptocurrency exchanges, FBI warns Meta to pay $1.4 billion over unauthorized facial recognition image capture Apple fixes Siri vulnerabilities that could have allowed...

Scammers are impersonating cryptocurrency exchanges, FBI warns

The Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI issued a public service announcement warning the public about scammers impersonating cryptocurrency exchange employees to steal funds. There are many types of crypto related scams, but in this case, the FBI provided an advisory about scammers that contact t...

Meta to pay $1.4 billion over unauthorized facial recognition image capture

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced a $1.4 billion settlement with Meta to “stop the company’s practice of capturing and using the personal biometric data of millions of Texans without the authorization required by law.” The prime reason for the initial lawsuit that led to the...

Apple fixes Siri vulnerabilities that could have allowed sensitive data theft from locked device. Update now!

Apple has released security updates for many of its products in order to patch several vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to steal sensitive information from a locked device. Included in the patches for Apple Watch, iOS, and iPadOS are four vulnerabilities in Siri. While your device is...

Threat actor impersonates Google via fake ad for Authenticator

We have previously reported on the brand impersonation issue with Google ads: users who search for popular keywords are shown malicious ads that purport to be from an official vendor. Not only does this trick innocent victims into downloading malware or losing their data to phishing sites, it als...

SIEM is not storage, with Jess Dodson (Lock and Code S05E16)

This week on the Lock and Code podcast… In the world of business cybersecurity, the powerful technology known as "Security Information and Event Management" is sometimes thwarted by the most unexpected actors—the very people setting it up. Security Information and Event Management—or SIEM—is a te...

US senators ask FTC to investigate car makers’ privacy practices

An ongoing US Senate investigation indicated that connected car makers violate consumer privacy by sharing and selling drivers’ data, including their location, on a vast scale, and that the same car makers often obtain consumer consent through deception. Based on this investigation, senators have...

A week in security (July 22 – July 28)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Meta takes down 63,000 sextortion-related accounts on Instagram Windows update may present users with a BitLocker recovery screen TracFone will pay $16 million to settle FCC data breach investigation Google admits it can’t quite quit third-party cookies Heritage...

Meta takes down 63,000 sextortion-related accounts on Instagram

Meta announced the take-down of 63,000 sextortion-related Instagram accounts in Nigeria alone. The action was directed against a group known as Yahoo Boys, a loosely organized set of cybercriminals that largely operate out of Nigeria and specialize in different types of scams. Meta took down a ho...

Windows update may present users with a BitLocker recovery screen

Some Windows users may see a BitLocker Recovery screen after applying the Microsoft patch Tuesday updates. BitLocker is a Windows security feature that encrypts entire drives. It prevents someone that has obtained a stolen or lost device from reading the files stored on that drive. Unfortunately,...

TracFone will pay $16 million to settle FCC data breach investigation

Following three separate data breaches between 2021 and 2023 which exposed the proprietary information PI of TracFone Wireless customers, the Federal Communications Commission FCC announced that the Verizon-owned company has agreed to pay a $16 million civil penalty to settle the government...

Google admits it can’t quite quit third-party cookies

For more than a year, Google has said it would phase out the third-party tracking cookies that power much of its advertising business online, proposing new ideas that would allegedly preserve user privacy while still providing businesses with steady revenue streams. This week, Google tossed much ...

Heritage Foundation data breach containing personal data is available online

The Heritage Foundation this month denied that it had suffered an earlier system breach and the subsequent leaking of internal data. But the organization had to admit that cybercriminals gained access to an archive of Heritages affiliated media site, The Daily Signal, dating back to 2022. That...

A week in security (July 15 – July 21)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: CrowdStrike update at center of Windows "Blue Screen of Death" outage Number of data breach victims goes up 1,000% Gen Z breakups tainted by login abuse for spying and stalking, research shows Rite Aid says 2.2 million people affected in data breach AI device Rabbi...

CrowdStrike update at center of Windows “Blue Screen of Death” outage

A faulty update from the cybersecurity vendor CrowdStrike crashed countless Windows computers and sent them into a “Blue Screen of Death” BSOD, grinding to a halt the global operations of airlines, hospitals, news broadcasters, transportation agencies, and more. The incident itself is not the...

Number of data breach victims goes up 1,000%

Nope, that headlines not a typo. Over one thousand percent. The Identity Theft Resource Center ITRC tracked 1,041,312,601 data breach victims in Q2 2024, an increase of 1,170% over Q2 2023 81,958,874 victims. The ITRC is a national non-profit organization set up with the goal of minimizing the ri...

Gen Z breakups tainted by login abuse for spying and stalking, research shows

Breaking up is hard to do, but for younger Americans today, ending a romantic relationship requires more than a heart-to-heart conversation—it could also require protection against follow-on invasions of online privacy and security. According to a new analysis of research released earlier this...

Rite Aid says 2.2 million people affected in data breach

The US third-largest pharmacy chain Rite Aid has filed a data breach notification in which it reports that the data stolen during a June ransomware attack compromised the data of some 2.2 million people. Ransomware group RansomHub claimed responsibility for the attack that took place on June 6,...

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...

How an AI “artist” stole a woman’s face, with Ali Diamond (Lock and Code S05E15)

This week on the Lock and Code podcast… Full-time software engineer and part-time Twitch streamer Ali Diamond is used to seeing herself on screen, probably because she’s the one who turns the camera on. But when Diamond received a Direct Message DM on Twitter earlier this year, she learned that h...

Disney “breached,” data dumped online

A group of cybercriminals going by the handle NullBulge claims to have downloaded the Slack channels used by Disney’s developers. “DisneySlackLeak Disney has had their entire dev slack dumped. 1.1TiB of files and chat messages. Anything we could get our hands on, we downloaded and packaged up. Wa...

A week in security (July 8 – July 14)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: "Nearly all" AT&T customers had phone records stolen in new data breach disclosure Fake Microsoft Teams for Mac delivers Atomic Stealer Dangerous monitoring tool mSpy suffers data breach, exposes customer details iPhone users in 98 countries warned about spyware by...

Fake Microsoft Teams for Mac delivers Atomic Stealer

Competition between stealers for macOS is heating up, with a new malvertising campaign luring Mac users via a fraudulent advert for Microsoft Teams. This attack comes on the heels of the new Poseidon OSX.RodStealer project, another threat using a similar code base and delivery techniques. Based o...

Dangerous monitoring tool mSpy suffers data breach, exposes customer details

In a new episode of Spy vs Spy, the mobile monitoring app mSpy has suffered a data breach that exposed information about millions of its customers. As Malwarebytes Labs has reported before, the types of companies that make mobile applications that enable users to non-consensually spy and monitor ...

“Nearly all” AT&T customers had phone records stolen in new data breach disclosure

In a déjà-vu nightmare, US phone giant AT&T has notified customers that cybercriminals managed to download phone call and text message records of "nearly all of AT&T cellular customers from May 1, 2022 to October 31, 2022 as well as on January 2, 2023". In a filing with the Securities and Exchang...

iPhone users in 98 countries warned about spyware by Apple

In April 2024, we reported how Apple was warning people of mercenary attacks via its threat notification system. At the time it warned users in 92 countries. In a new round, Apple is now warning users in 98 countries of potential mercenary spyware attacks. The message sent to the affected users...

Peloton accused of providing customer chat data to train AI

It seems that Peloton may have been providing more training than just for its customers, as its set to face court in California accused of using user chat data to train AI. Peloton Interactive, Inc. is a US-based exercise equipment and media company, known for its stationary bicycles, treadmills,...

Ticketmaster says stolen Taylor Swift Eras Tour tickets are useless

While cybercriminals are offering free tickets to Taylor Swift Eras Tour and other events, Ticketmaster is telling would-be purchasers that these tickets will prove to be worthless. Those who have claimed responsibility for the Ticketmaster data breach say they’ve stolen 440,000 tickets for Taylo...

Shopify says stolen customer data was taken in third-party breach

Shopify has denied a breach of its systems after a cybercriminal posted alleged Shopify customer details online. Shopify told BleepingComputer and other publications that the incident happened at a third party: "Shopify systems have not experienced a security incident. The data loss reported was...

‘RockYou2024’: Nearly 10 billion passwords leaked online

On a popular hacking form, a user has leaked a file that contains 9,948,575,739 unique plaintext passwords. The list appears to be a compilation of passwords that were obtained during several old and more recent data breaches. The list is referred to as RockYou2024 because of its filename,...

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...

Ticketmaster hackers release stolen ticket barcodes for Taylor Swift Eras Tour [updated]

The cybercriminals who claimed responsibility for the Ticketmaster data breach say theyve stolen 440,000 tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. As proof, an entity using the handle Sp1d3rHunters, a merger of Sp1d3r and ShinyHunters who are both aliases associated with the breach, leaked 170k...

Authy phone numbers accessed by cybercriminals, warns Twilio

Twilio has warned users of the Authy multi-factor authentication MFA app about an incident in which cybercriminals may have obtained their phone numbers. Twilio said the cybercriminals abused an unsecured Application Programming Interface API endpoint to verify the phone numbers of millions of...

Affirm says Evolve Bank data breach also compromised some of its customers

Buy now, pay later payment specialist Affirm has warned that holders of its payment cards had their personal information exposed after a ransomware attack and data breach at Evolve Bank & Trust. In a form 8-K, submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission SEC, Affirm states: “Because the...

Prudential Financial data breach impacts 2.5 million people, not 36,000 as first thought

In February 2024, Prudential Financial reported it had fallen victim to a ransomware attack. The attack was discovered one day after it started, but not before some 2.5 million people had been impacted by the resulting data breach. As one of the largest insurance companies in the US, Prudential...

Personal data stolen from unsuspecting airport visitors and plane passengers in “evil twin” attacks, man charged

The Australian Federal Police AFP have charged a man for setting up fake free WiFi access points in order to steal personal data from people. The crime was discovered when an airline reported a suspicious WiFi network identified by its employees during a domestic flight. When the alleged...