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Beware scammers disguised as fraud busters
Fraudsters like confusing and disorienting people. Successful ones avoid obvious lines of approach and try things you wouldnt expect. A recent story highlights this, with a particularly devious method of parting someone from their money. The Daily Record reports scammers running off with an $11,0...
Warning! Instagram Stories hides a scam in plain sight
When someone finds their social media account compromised, they first think about letting their followers know. And they do. They warn others from reading any strange posts, usually containing a rogue link, before they sort out the matter behind the scenes. Some curious followers who missed these...
Google Play’s Data safety section empowers Android users to make informed app choices
Google has launched its new "nutrition labels" for apps, a feature it promised in the spring of 2021. This release came days after the Chrome team released badges for the Chrome Web Store for browser extensions. The company said in a blog post that its rolling out the labels—which it calls the...
Ukraine government and pro-Ukrainian sites hit by DDoS attacks
The Computer Emergency Response Team in Ukraine CERT-UA has announced that Ukraine government web portals and pro-Ukraine sites are subjected to ongoing DDoS distributed denial of service attacks. They dont currently know who is behind these attacks. The attack involves injecting a malicious...
Why you should be taking security advice from your grandmother
We tend to accept that younger folks are supposed to be more tech savvy, given they’ve grown up with computers and the Internet pretty much their whole lives. If you go back about 15 or so years, a lot of security advice focused on the “warning your grandmother away from scams” routine. The defau...
FBI warns food and agriculture to brace for seasonal ransomware attacks
The Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI recently released a Private Industry Notification warning agriculture cooperatives also known as "farmers co-ops" of the looming danger of well-timed ransomware attacks. The agency warns that during the critical planting and harvesting seasons, attacks coul...
Hackers fool major tech companies into handing over data of women and minors to abuse
Some major tech companies have unwittingly opened harassment and exploitation opportunities to the women and children who they have pledged to protect. This happened because they provided information in response to emergency data requests from legitimate law enforcement accounts that hackers had...
Call of Duty cheats can expect embarrassment with new anti-cheat feature
In-game cheats are about to have an even harder time of things in triple AAA titles such as Call of Duty. Activision’s “Ricochet” software - a kernel level driver anti-cheat system - has added another twist to the tale of how players are protected via a new system called “Cloaking”. Making all ne...
Fake USA for UNHCR site wants your Ukraine donations in Bitcoin
Since Russia began invading Ukraine in late February, many organizations have set up donation pages to aid the most heavily affected: Families who were forced out of their homes due to bombings and children separated from grown-ups who decided to stay and take arms. Weve also seen a considerable...
QNAP customers urged to disable AFP to protect against severe vulnerabilities
MacOS users that have a network-attached storage NAS device made by QNAP are being advised to disable the Apple Filing Protocol AFP on their devices until some severe vulnerabilities have been fixed. But QNAP is not the only vendor that needed to fix these vulnerabilities. Others have already don...
Onyx ransomware destroys files, and also the criminal circle of trust
Some ransomware authors seem to be whittling down their tenuous "circle of trust" style agreement with victims even further. Word has spread of an Onyx ransomware operation a variant of Chaos ransomware which is quite a bit more destructive than those impacted would be hoping for. However, all is...
Facebook phishers threaten users with Page Recovery Help Support
We’ve seen multiple hijacked profiles on Facebook recently claiming to be account recovery services. These bogus account recovery services arent here to help. Theyre actually just trying to scare users into falling for phishing attempts. The people behind these scams target Facebook pages belongi...
Elon Musk-themed cryptocurrency scam uses fake Medium as the promotion site
So Elon Musk is buying Twitter, and you can be sure that scammers are making the most of this news. As Elon Musk spends most of the week in the headlines, so pop up Elon Musk-themed scams—and it looks like they may be ramping up. We witnessed a flurry of replies from the man himself in response t...
“URGENT BUSINESS PROPOSAL!!!” 419 scammer wants your help to move someone’s inheritance
We’ve received several emails over the last couple of days which follow the classic 419 mail scam method. Titled “URGENT BUSINESS PROPOSAL!!!”, the mail reads as follows: Greetings, I am Mukhtar M. Hussain. I got your contact information from a reputable business/professional directory. I'm worki...
What’s happening in the world of personal cyber insurance?
Youve likely only seen cybercrime insurance primarily mentioned in relation to attacks on businesses. Most commonly, it’s cited with regard to ransomware attacks in the workplace, or associated data loss. Some folks think the mere presence of insurance simply encourages more attacks, and is hurti...
“Reject All” cookie consent button is coming to European Google Search and YouTube
Google will soon be giving European countries a "Reject All" button in the Search and YouTube cookie consent banner. This change, which was revealed by Googles Product Manager for Privacy, Safety & Security Sammit Adhya in a blog post, has already been rolled out in France and will be cascaded to...
Emotet fixes bug in code, resumes spam campaign
Emotet threat actors resumed their email spam campaign on Monday after stopping it late last week to fix a bug. The bug—a flaw in how Emotet is installed onto a system after a victim opens a malicious email attachment—forced the actors to prematurely halt their campaign. Sample email of an Emotet...
Hospitals taken offline after cyberattack
The GHT Coeur Grand Est has become a victim of a cyberattack on the hospital centers of Vitry-le-François and Saint-Dizier. The hospital’s administration has warned French that data have been exfiltrated and might be used for phishing in the future. As a consequence, the GHT Cœur Grand Est has cu...
Rogue ads phishing for cryptocurrency: Are you secure?
Bad ads are at it again. Rogue Google ads caused no end of misery for cryptocurrency enthusiasts, costing them roughly $4.31 million between the 12th and the 21st of April. This is an astonishing slice of cryptocurrency cash to lose for the sake of clicking on something in a search engine. The...
Watch out for this SMS phish promising a tax refund
Imagine logging into your bank’s website after responding to a text message claiming you’re due a refund, only to see a warning to watch out for bogus texts: Beware of SMS phishing! For those who dont read Dutch, the warning reads: Never respond to unusual emails or texts! Fraudsters often send...
Why software has so many vulnerabilities, with Tanya Janca: Lock and Code S03E09
Less than one year ago, the worst ransomware attack in history struck dozens of organizations. Threat actors had exploited a serious flaw in the remote monitoring and management tool Kaseya VSA that, when discussed on the Lock and Code podcast, was revealed to be "not advanced at all." This was f...
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...
Why MITRE matters to SMBs
Running a small- to medium-sized business SMB requires expertise in everything, from marketing and sales to management and hiring, but in the ever-expanding list of executive responsibilities, one particular item demands attention: Cybersecurity. Cyberattacks can—and have—shuttered entire...
A week in security (April 18 – 24)
Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Why you shouldn’t automate your VirusTotal uploads North Korean Lazarus APT group targets blockchain tech companies Watch out for Ukraine donation scammers in Twitter replies Beware tragic “my daughter died…” Facebook posts offering free PS5s US warns of APT groups...
Pegasus spyware found on UK government office phone
“When we found the No. 10 case, my jaw dropped." John Scott-Railton recalled after finding out on July 7, 2020 that Pegasus, the highly sophisticated flagship spyware of Israels NSO Group, was used to infect a phone linked to the network at 10 Downing Street, the UK Prime Ministers home and offic...
Lenovo issues fixes for laptop backdoors
Researchers have discovered three vulnerabilities affecting various Lenovo consumer laptop models. The vulnerabilities were found in UEFI firmware drivers originally meant to be used only during the manufacturing process, along with a vulnerability in the SW SMI handler function. The list of...
Beware of fake Twitter philanthropists offering to put $750 into your Cash App account
Twitter philanthropists are a controversial emergence on the social media platform. In essence, Twitter-based philanthropy is about incredibly rich people helping out those who need it. The help is random, and often focused around performing a task like listening to a podcast or simply retweeting...
It’s legal to scrape public data—US appeals court
Web scraping—the automated extraction of data from websites—has been around for a long time. Simultaneously cursed and praised, with nobody being able to quite land the decisive blow about whether it should be allowed, one way or another. This may have changed, thanks to a recent US appeals court...
The fake Elon Musk Bitcoin giveaway marathon will NOT make you rich
Today we look at a fakeout which begins with Elon Musk, and ends with a trip to Mars or, if youre really lucky, the Sun. One of the most annoying “features” of Twitter is being added to lists without permission. Its a theoretically useful way to keep track of certain topics. It’s often also used...
Oracle releases massive Critical Patch Update containing 520 security patches
Oracle has issued a Critical Patch Update which contains 520 new security patches across various product families. A few of these updates may need your urgent attention if you are a user of the affected product. Publicly disclosed computer security flaws are listed in the Common Vulnerabilities a...
US warns of APT groups that can “gain full system access” to some industrial control systems
An "exceptionally rare and dangerous" advanced persistent threat APT malware kit, containing custom-made tools designed to target some of North America’s industrial control systems ICS and supervisory control and data acquisition SCADA devices, appears to have been caught before it could be let...
Beware tragic “my daughter died…” Facebook posts offering free PS5s
Tragic tales are being posted to Facebook, combined with the offer of a giveaway. However, some are perhaps not quite what they seem. The PS5 is still one of the hottest bits of tech around, and near-total lack of availability, combined with a high sale price, means that some people will do...
Watch out for Ukraine donation scammers in Twitter replies
The invasion of Ukraine has been a money making opportunity for scammers since the moment it began: Fake donation sites, bogus Red Cross portals, phishing pages, the works. These scams can also be found on social media. Faking donations on Twitter Some users of social media have become very...
North Korean Lazarus APT group targets blockchain tech companies
A new advisory issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA, and the US Treasury Department Treasury, highlights the cyberthreats associated with cryptocurrency thefts and tactics used by a North Korean state-sponsored advanced...
Why you shouldn’t automate your VirusTotal uploads
It is important to realize that uploading certain files to VirusTotal may result in leaking confidential data, which could result in a breach of confidentiality, or worse. We have warned against uploading personal information, as does VirusTotal itself on their home page. But apparently some...
A week in security (April 11 – 17)
Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Credential-stealing malware disguises itself as Telegram, targets social media users Old Play Store apps served notice by upcoming API level changes Denonia cryptominer is first malware to target AWS Lambda Ransomware: March 2022 review Why identity management...
Filing your taxes? Be wary of help found through search engines
The deadline for filing your taxes in the US is nearly upon us. April 18 is the very last date that you can afford to hand your tax returns in to the IRS. People will naturally gravitate toward all manner of filing tools to get the job done. But it’s worth noting that sites are lurking in search...
Stalkerware-type detections hit record high in 2021, but fell in second half
After having tracked stalkerware for years, Malwarebytes can reveal that in 2021, detections for apps that can non-consensually monitor another persons activity reached their highest peak ever, but that, amidst the record-setting numbers, the volume of detections actually began to significantly...
Zloader, another botnet, bites the dust
Microsoft has announced that its Digital Crimes Unit DCU has taken legal and technical action to disrupt a malicious botnet called Zloader. Zloader or Zbot are common names used to refer to any malware related to the ZeuS family. There are a lot of those because the ZeuS banking Trojan source cod...
“Your AppIe lD has been locked” spam email takes you on a website mystery tour
Spam which claims your account has been locked out and needs to be fixed are common. They drive people to phishing campaigns on a daily basis. The mail below follows the same pattern with one key difference. It looks like a phish, but goes somewhere else entirely. No, your Apple ID has not been...
SMS group spam promises free gifts in return for bill payment
We’re seeing lots of examples of peculiar SMS messages sent to random groups of people. Most of these messages promise free gifts and/or offers after having paid bills. Nobody has asked for these texts, and they’re not being sent by providers of any services. What’s going on? The set up Most of t...
April’s Patch Tuesday update includes fixes for two zero-day vulnerabilities
It’s that time of the month again. Time to check what needs to be updated and prioritize where necessary. The Microsoft updates include at least two zero-day vulnerabilities that deserve your attention. Microsoft Microsoft has released security updates and non-security updates for client and serv...
NGINX zero-day vulnerability: Check if you’re affected
On April 9, hacking group BlueHornet tweeted about an experimental exploit for NGINX 1.18 and promised to warn companies affected by it. On April 10, BlueHornet claimed to have breached the China branch of UBS Securities using the NGINX vulnerability. All we learned on Twitter was that a new...
Steer clear of this “TestNTrace” SMS spam
Yesterday I received an SMS from “TestNTrace”, with the message resembling an official NHS communication: The text reads as follows: NHS: You’ve been in close contact with a person who has contracted the Omicron variant. Please order a test kit via: URL redacted Well, that’s an alarming thing to...
Malwarebytes Evaluation of the MITRE ENGENUITY ATT&CK Round 4 Emulations
The results of the MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluation of the Wizard Spider and Sandworm adversaries were officially released1 last week. We are very proud of the Malwarebytes EDR results in the MITRE Engenuity test, which are the direct reflection of a relentless core EDR team and the learnings fr...
Conti ransomware offshoot targets Russian organizations
Thanks to the Threat Intelligence team for their help with this article. Conti, the infamous ransomware created by a group of Russian and Eastern European cybercriminals, has again made headlines after a hacking group used its leaked source code to create another variant of the ransomware and...
How to password protect a folder
There are times when you would like a folder to be accessible by you alone. Financial information, personal documents, or work related files on your personal system sometimes need to be hidden from prying eyes. One of the ways to do this is to password protect the folder. Windows For the Windows...
Apps removed from Google Play for harvesting user data
Dozens of apps were removed from the Google Play Store after they were found to be harvesting the data of device owners. The code in question—a software development kit SDK—was used inside apps which were downloaded over 10 million times. What happened? A wide range of Android apps were found to...
USPS “Your package could not be delivered” text is a smishing scam
A scam is doing the rounds which begins with a text from what claims to be the US Postal Service. The SMS reads as follows: "U.S. Postal Service We’re sorry to let you know that your package could not be delivered. To reschedule a delivery please visit bitdotly" I’ve never received an SMS from th...
Why identity management matters
Today is Identity Management Day, which aims to inform the public about the dangers of casually or improperly managing and securing digital identities. The day was started in 2021 and is hosted by the Identity Defined Security Alliance IDSA and National Cybersecurity Alliance. Digital identity A...