Social media platforms crack down on drone factory recruiting game

A video game about drone warfare may look like an unusual cybersecurity story. But cybersecurity isn't only about malware or stolen passwords. Sometimes it's about understanding how online platforms are used to influence decisions, build trust, and persuade people to share personal information or...

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...

Watch out for fake TikTok Shops trying to steal your money

TikTok Shop is a real, functioning e-commerce feature built into the TikTok app, allowing users to buy goods without ever leaving TikTok. As it's grown in popularity, scammers have begun cloning its appearance.Storefronts that reproduce its look, its trust badges, and its category layout closely...

Fake popular sites offer a free app, instead take over PCs

A website built to look almost exactly like CNN’s homepage is telling visitors to download "the new CNN app." But it's not CNN’s app, and has nothing to do with the news company. The campaign doesn’t stop at CNN. It also uses fake Stremio and Avast installers hosted on similarly convincing...

How to fake a data trail (and maybe lower prices) (Lock and Code S07E16)

It may sound entirely bizarre but the prices you once paid for hotels, educational classes, or staplers could have all been higher because you used a Mac computer, lived in a certain zip code, or lacked an Office Depot in your neighborhood. No, really. In 2012, The Wall Street Journal reported th...

New turnkey kit makes it easy for anyone to become a scammer

In 2026, online scams have unfortunately become part of the new normal. They can appear almost anywhere, from social media and messaging apps to search results, websites, and online communities, and they can target anyone. Sometimes, all it takes is a moment of curiosity and a convincing offer...

Edge is dropping older extensions, affecting popular privacy tools

Microsoft is beginning the retirement of Manifest V2 MV2 extensions in Edge this month, with consumer completion targeted for the end of 2026 and managed-enterprise deprecation in early 2027. Microsoft says that change is justified because 95% of the most-used MV2 extensions in the Edge Add-ons...

A week in security (August 3 – August 9)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: AI chat bots are sliding into League of Legends friend requests Meta ordered to pay $942 million over harm to children Apple WebKit vulnerabilities reveal your IP address, despite Private Relay Scammers target OnlyFans users with deepfakes Amazon and Apple...

AI chat bots are sliding into League of Legends friend requests

Lina K., a co-worker, recently shared a firsthand account of how bots are adding League of Legends players via the Riot client friends list immediately after a match ends, striking up a flirty conversation, and eventually pushing an OnlyFans link. The pattern lines up with a wave of complaints th...

Meta ordered to pay $942 million over harm to children

A New Mexico court has ordered Meta to pay a total of $942 million after finding that Facebook and Instagram harmed young users and that the company misled consumers about the safety of its platforms. Reportedly, the decision combines a $375 million civil-penalty verdict from March with a newly...

Meta ordered to pay $942 million over harm to children

A New Mexico court has ordered Meta to pay a total of $942 million after finding that Facebook and Instagram harmed young users and that the company misled consumers about the safety of its platforms. Reportedly, the decision combines a $375 million civil-penalty verdict from March with a newly...

Apple WebKit vulnerabilities reveal your IP address, despite Private Relay

Three WebKit mechanisms have been discovered to bypass Apple's iCloud Private Relay. In fact, the mechanisms can bypass any browser‑level proxy configuration, including Psylo’s proxy, Tor-on-iOS proxy setups, and so on. Private Relay is a VPN-like system for Safari on iOS which is meant to preven...

Scammers target OnlyFans users with deepfakes

OnlyFans creators are used to posting adult videos of themselves online, but what happens if someone takes control of their images and uses them for fraud? This week, USA Today revealed how criminals are impersonating OnlyFans creators using AI tools. They use deepfake content to lure the real...

Amazon and Apple impersonated in “$149.99 unauthorized charge” scam

If you’ve spent any time browsing lately, you may have run into a full-screen popup warning you that your Apple ID or Amazon account was just used for a mysterious $149.99 purchase. It looks urgent. It looks official. And if you look at two examples side by side, it becomes obvious that it’s...

Anthropic’s Mythos AI used social engineering to target real people

Anthropic’s Mythos AI agent, tested by the UK AI Safety Institute AISI, has reportedly attempted a real‑world social‑engineering style hack against GitHub maintainers by creating fake human profiles, pressuring them to accept malicious code, and then editing logs to hide its tracks when challenge...

Google’s synchronized passkeys can be stolen in ‘Pass‑ta‑key’ attacks

Passkeys were supposed to make stolen passwords a thing of the past. No password to phish, no secret to reuse, and no string of characters sitting in a database waiting to be leaked. Over time, it's thought that passkeys will replace passwords entirely. But what happens when malware steals the...

Junk Cleaner clears the clutter from your Android

Your phone is full again, and the warning appears at exactly the wrong moment. Suddenly you can't update apps, record a video, or save another photo. The cause is rarely one giant file. Storage disappears in a steady drizzle of leftovers: temporary files an app creates and forgets, caches that gr...

Apple battles it out again with the UK over encrypted iCloud access

The UK Home Office has once again demanded Apple allows it access to encrypted iCloud data. The Guardian reports that the Home Office issued a Technical Capability Notice to Apple, this time targeting only British users. A Technical Capability Notice is a formal government order that compels tech...

Travelers targeted when logging into hotel Wi-Fi networks

Microsoft has warned that hotel, conference, and other hospitality Wi-Fi networks are being actively abused by a Russian group to target travelers worldwide. The campaign, dubbed "CaptiveCrunch" turns a routine Wi-Fi login moment into an opportunity to compromise corporate accounts and devices...

Online backlash ends in Google rolling back Google Earth AI tool after a day

Google has walked back an AI feature that allowed users to generate artificial images inside Google Earth, after a predictable flurry of deepfakes. Google switched on the AI image generation feature inside Google Earth's web version on July 30. It was available to everyone. The system used Google...

WhatsApp account takeover scam asks you to “vote for my friend”

A scam is spreading through WhatsApp with the goal of taking over victims' accounts entirely. It starts with a message that feels harmless and familiar. Someone—often a contact whose account has already been compromised—asks you to support a friend or relative of theirs by voting in an online...

“Adult TikTok” searches lead to scams

Search for certain combinations of "TikTok" and adult content, and sooner or later you'll land on a page promising exactly what you searched for: an endless feed of explicit clips, no signup required, just tap and watch. There isn't one. On the other side of that click is an ad funnel dressed up ...

The AI Act kicks into action, forces companies to be clear about AI chatbots

The European Union EU has started enforcing key parts of the AI Act, with immediate, visible consequences for chatbots, deepfakes and other consumer‑facing Artificial Intelligence AI systems. From August 2, what you'll likely notice are more "this is AI" labels, clearer rules for powerful...

Californians can tell data brokers to DROP their information

California has launched the Delete Request and Opt‑out Platform DROP, a state‑run portal that lets residents send deletion and opt‑out requests to all registered data brokers in one place. DROP was created under California’s Delete Act, which forces data brokers to register with the California...

A week in security (July 27 – August 2)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Fake Fortnite rewards are stealing players’ accounts Fake Flash Player installs AtlasRAT Malwarebytes for Windows, now available on the Microsoft Store Hims & Hers sued over alleged health data privacy failures Hidden prompt turns Microsoft Copilot into an AI worm...

Fake Fortnite rewards are stealing players’ accounts

Fortnite scam pages like the ones below appear by the dozen every day, recycled endlessly under different names and designs. One version promises $50 from a fake superhero collaboration. Another claims it can calculate what your locker is worth. Both lead to the same destination: a fake Epic Game...

Fake Flash Player installs AtlasRAT

Researchers have described a campaign that delivers a remote access Trojan RAT called AtlasRAT through a fake Flash Player installer. People still go looking for “Flash player” because a surprising amount of content and software was built around Flash and never properly migrated. Users often just...

Malwarebytes for Windows, now available on the Microsoft Store

When you’re setting up a new PC or looking for an app you already know, the Microsoft Store is often the easiest place to start. It’s built into Windows and lets you find, install, and update apps in one place. Malwarebytes for Windows is now available there too. Malwarebytes for Windows is still...

Hims & Hers sued over alleged health data privacy failures

The US Federal Trade Commission FTC, together with Utah and California, has filed a lawsuit against telehealth provider Hims & Hers. The FTC alleges that the company shared consumers’ sensitive health information with third‑party advertising platforms despite promising strong privacy protections...

Hidden prompt turns Microsoft Copilot into an AI worm

A security researcher has demonstrated how Microsoft Copilot for Word can be tricked into spreading a self‑propagating prompt‑injection “AI worm.” The attack silently alters documents and embeds its own hidden instructions into newly created files, allowing it to spread through normal...

Hidden prompt can make Microsoft Copilot spread itself through your Word docs

A security researcher has demonstrated how Microsoft Copilot for Word can be tricked into spreading a self‑propagating prompt‑injection “AI worm.” The attack silently alters documents and embeds its own hidden instructions into newly created files, allowing it to spread through normal...

Apple accused of letting fake crypto app steal $1.8 million

Apple's tagline for its App Store says, "The apps you love. From a place you can trust." You might love the apps, but can you trust the store? A federal lawsuit filed in the Northern District of California last week suggests not. Three people have accused Apple of promoting a fake version of the...

Buying TikTok views or followers? Here’s what you’re really getting

A whole industry has sprung up around selling TikTok "growth." Cheap views by the hundred, pre-made ad accounts, and polished sales pages promising a repeatable path to serious revenue. None of it is officially sanctioned by TikTok, and depending on what you're buying, you could end up wasting...

AI robocalls: Why caller ID is still lying to you

If you feel like your phone has turned into a scam megaphone, you’re not alone. Robocalls have been a problem for years. Artificial intelligence AI is making them slicker, faster, and harder to spot. A new investigation by Transaction Network Services TNS shows that while the big telecom players...

OpenAI explains how its AI agent breached Hugging Face

On July 28, OpenAI published an update on the agent that escaped its sandbox and hacked into Hugging Face during an internal cybersecurity evaluation. In the update, OpenAI reiterates that the “rogue” system was a more capable, pre‑release research model, not something intended for public...

We found 120 fake Walmart stores trying to steal your credit card

Shoppers browsing on their phones are landing on convincing Walmart lookalike sites offering name-brand liquor at 40% to 70% off, only to be led straight to a checkout page asking for a full credit card number, expiry date, and CVV. The sites have no connection to Walmart. They're part of a netwo...

We rebuilt Malwarebytes Mobile Security for the scams of today

Nearly half of people encounter a scam on their phone every single day. Malwarebytes is doing something about it. That figure comes from a 2025 Malwarebytes survey of 1,300 respondents across the US and Europe. The results paint a troubling picture. A quarter of the victims surveyed reported bein...

Shared Claude chats were searchable on Google

Reddit users found that by using a specific Google search query, it was possible to find Claude conversations that users had shared. This exposed sensitive material, including crypto wallet keys, names, addresses, work notes, and even erotic or otherwise policy-violating chats. Fortune says...

Update your iPhone, iPad and Mac to fix Apple security holes

Apple has shipped a hefty round of July security patches, headlined by iOS/iPadOS 26.6, macOS Tahoe 26.6, and Safari 26.6, with dozens of vulnerabilities squashed across kernel, WebKit, media frameworks, and core apps. These updates are primarily about improving security rather than adding new...

Vatican’s Click To Pray app exposed personal data from 700,000 users

A prayer app launched by Pope Francis in 2019 contained a security flaw that exposed the personal information of hundreds of thousands of users before it was finally fixed this year. The app, Click To Pray, was developed by La Machi Communication for Good Causes for the Pope's Worldwide Prayer...

Aftercall ads are driving Android users crazy

Aftercall is a wave of deceptive Android apps on Google Play that pose as everyday tools while bombarding users with pop-up ads after every phone call. When an unexpected ad pops up every time you hang up a call, it will slowly drive you crazy, especially if you can’t figure out what's causing it...

Sextortion scammers are exploiting ShinyHunters data leaks

Sextortion scammers are using email addresses from data leaked by the ShinyHunters hacking group to add some credibility to their feeble attempts to convince people they have embarrassing information about them. Sextortion emails are messages claiming that the scammer recorded you through your...

What’s your data worth on the dark web? (Lock and Code S07E15)

This week on the Lock and Code podcast… Twenty years ago, a British mathematician named Clive Humby popularized a phrase that came to describe data's relationship with the entire global economy: "Data is the new oil." Pithy as the phrase sounds, it is undeniably true. Data steers decisions at...

A week in security (July 20 – July 26)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Don’t get fooled by TikTok resin art scams Call of Duty Mobile scam uses fake free points to steal player accounts OpenAI’s agent escaped its sandbox during a security test Google wants to store a selfie video of your face Beyond the Play Store: How Android threats...

Don’t get fooled by TikTok resin art scams

Resin art has become a popular corner of TikTok, with some videos attracting millions of views. But not every glossy, colorful post is what it claims to be. Scammers are using the look of handmade resin art to trick buyers, collectors, and even fellow artists into sending money for work that eith...

Call of Duty Mobile scam uses fake free points to steal player accounts

Call of Duty Mobile players should watch out for a phishing campaign disguised as a free Call of Duty Points giveaway. Victims are asked to log in with their email address and password to claim free Call of Duty Points CP, the game's premium currency. They're then redirected to a second page aski...

OpenAI’s agent escaped its sandbox during a security test

During an internal OpenAI security evaluation, a chain of AI models escaped its sandbox, reached the internet, and then accessed Hugging Face infrastructure to complete the test objective. OpenAI is a leading artificial intelligence AI research and deployment company. Its best-known product is...

Google wants to store a selfie video of your face

Google has started rolling out a new way to recover access to your account if you’ve lost your phone or forgotten your password: a “selfie video” verification option. After recording a short video of your face during setup, you can later submit another video during account recovery to prove you a...

Beyond the Play Store: How Android threats really spread

You probably think of your phone's security the way you think of your front door: as long as you're downloading apps from the Play Store, you're safe. And for the most part, that's true. Google reviews apps before they’re published. But some apps reach your phone without ever passing through the...