Beware of this bogus (and phishy) “Instagram Support” email

Recently, a fake Instagram email successfully bypassed Googles email filters and made it into hundreds of employee inboxes used by a prominent US life insurance company based in New York. This was revealed in a report by Armorblox, a cybersecurity company specializing in stopping business email...

Meet Exotic Lily, access broker for ransomware and other malware peddlers

The Google Threat Analysis Group TAG has shared their observations about a group of cybercriminals called Exotic Lily. This group has specialized itself as an initial access broker, which means they find a vulnerability in an organizations defenses, exploit that vulnerability, and sell the access...

Double header: IsaacWiper and CaddyWiper

As war in Ukraine rages, new destructive malware continues to be discovered. In this short blog post, we will review IsaacWiper and CaddyWiper, two new wipers that do not have much in common based on their source code, but with the same intent of destroying targeted Ukrainian computer systems...

How to protect RDP

You didn’t really think that the ransomware wave was coming to an end, did you? You may be tempted to think so, given the decline in reports about massive ransomware campaigns. Dont be fooled. Over the last five years, one of the primary attack vectors for ransomware attacks has been the Remote...

Online Safety Bill’s provisions for “legal but harmful” content described as “censor’s charter”

The UKs Online Safety Bill, a landmark piece of legislation that that aims to regulate the countrys online content, has just been introduced into Parliament after undergoing significant revisions. The bill has been in progress for about five years and its main objective is to regulate online...

Deepfake Zelenskyy video surfaces on compromised websites

It’s been a long time coming. The worry over deepfake technology being used during times of major upheaval has been alluded to frequently over the last couple of years. The buildup to the US election was peppered by “any moment now…” style warnings of dramatic and plausible deepfake deployment. I...

Gh0stCringe RAT makes database servers squeal for protection

Researchers have found that the Gh0stCringe RAT is infecting Microsoft SQL and MySQL, and seems to focus on servers with weak protection. The Gh0stCringe RAT communicates with a command and control C&C server to receive instructions and is capable of exfiltrating information. SQL SQL is short for...

Clouding the issue: what cloud threats lie in wait in 2022?

As more services move ever cloud-wards, so too do thoughts by attackers as to how best exploit them. With all that juicy data sitting on someone else’s servers, it’s essential that they run a tight ship. You’re offloading some of your responsibility onto a third party, and sometimes things can go...

FBI catches up with one of its Most Wanted, arrests head of advance-fee crime network

Some dont mind putting extra effort into making their crime appear as legitimate as possible by perpetuating more lies as long as they are guaranteed money in the end. Osondu Victor Igwilo is one such Nigerian scammer. The "catchers" 52-year-old Igwilo has been on the Federal Bureau of...

“Threatening and coercive” cold-callers who targeted the elderly hit with big fines

Every so often, fines hit the news as a result of phone/communication spam. Much of it targets older members of society. Sometimes folks say these calls are “just” irritants and nothing to particularly worry about. But it can be really serious, resulting in big chunks of people’s savings being...

CafePress faces $500,000 fine for data breach cover up

The US Federal Trade Commission FTC has announced that it took action against online customized merchandise platform CafePress over allegations that it failed to secure consumers’ sensitive personal data and covered up a major breach. CafePress is a popular online custom T-shirt and merchandise...

Valorant cheats on YouTube are actually information-stealing malware

Valorant, the popular free-to-play team based shooter, is attracting the attention of scammers. It’s reported that a malware distribution campaign is leveraging YouTube to push infection files. The campaign distributes a file known for password theft, and hunts for those passwords in browsers,...

Fake Royal Mail chatbot offers up…a new iPhone?

Royal Mail scams are always popular techniques for people up to no good. We’ve covered them several times over the last year or so. A quick reminder: Your parcel is waiting for delivery This is the go-to tactic for fake Royal Mail phishing attacks. You receive a text claiming there’s a parcel in...

Escobar is the new Android banking Trojan we’ve met before

Aberebot, a known Android banking Trojan, has changed its name and returned loaded with new features. First spotted by @MalwareHunterTeam in early March, this mobile variant was renamed "Escobar"—a homage to the Colombian drug baron—and disguised itself as a McAfee app. It went by the package nam...

DDoS barrage against Israel described as the “largest ever” cyberattack its faced

Several government websites in Israel—those using the .gov.il domain—were inaccessible after a distributed denial of service DDoS attack hit Israels telecommunication provider, Cellcom. NetBlocks, a network disruption watchdog, initially detected "a significant disruption" aimed at the provider,...

Update now! Apple fixes several serious vulnerabilities in iOS and macOS

Apple has released patches for macOS Monterey 12.3, iOS 15.4 and iPadOS 15.4. In these security updates, released on March 14, 2022, Apple tackles 39 vulnerabilities, several of which could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on an affected device. One of the vulnerabilities can be...

Stolen Nvidia certificates used to sign malware—here’s what to do

As we wrote on March 3, 2022 Nvidia, was recently attacked by the LAPSUS$ ransomware group. The ensuing data leak included two of NVIDIA’s code signing certificates. Those certificates are now being used to sign malware. Leaked signing certificates from major vendors like Nvidia come with huge...

De-Googling Carey Parker’s (and your) life: Lock and Code S03E06

Three years ago, a journalist for Gizmodo named Kashmir Hill wanted to understand what life was like without "Big Tech." Far from a "digital detox" retreat—the kind of which were popular with exceedingly plugged-in, very online types of mid-20s and early-30s folks—Hills experiment with technology...

CISA list of 95 new known exploited vulnerabilities raises questions

On Friday March 3, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA added a whopping number of 95 new known exploited vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog. This catalog provides Federal Civilian Executive Branch FCEB agencies with a list of vulnerabilities that...

A week in security (March 7 – March 13)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: The struggle to reduce bug-fixing time is real Update now! Mozilla patches two actively exploited vulnerabilities Google takes on Docs notification spammers When fake dating profiles try the military approach Azure AutoWarp brings automation headaches RagnarLocker...

Blunting RDP brute-force attacks with rate limiting

Thanks to the Malwarebytes Threat Intelligence Team for the information they provided for this article. Not long ago, guessing a Windows Remote Desktop Protocol RDP password successfully was widely regarded as ransomware operators number one choice for breaching a target. It attracted a lot of...

HBO sued for sharing subscriber data with Facebook

HBO Max subscribers Angel McDaniel and Constance Simon filed a class-action lawsuit against HBO on Tuesday, alleging that the company has violated their privacy by sharing subscriber viewing data with Facebook. Bursor & Fisher filed the case on behalf of McDaniel and Simon. According to case...

Linux “Dirty Pipe” vulnerability gives unprivileged users root access

A vulnerability in the Linux kernel, nicknamed "Dirty Pipe", allows an unprivileged user to overwrite data in read-only files. This can lead to privilege escalation as a result of unprivileged processes being able to inject code into root processes. If youre not sure what that means but you think...

Ransomware: February 2022 review

The Malwarebytes Threat Intelligence team continuously monitors the threat landscape to stay on top of existing and emerging attacks. In this February 2022 ransomware review, we go over some the most successful ransomware incidents based on both open source and dark web intelligence. BlackByte...

Extortion scheme impersonates government officials, law enforcement

The FBI issued a public warning this week about a fraud scheme wherein scammers impersonate government officials and law enforcement personnel. According to the PSA, the scammers spoof legitimate numbers and names and use fake credentials of well-known members of the government and law enforcemen...

Brave browser goes the extra mile to block third party cookies

Brave is testing a new feature to stop bounce tracking, a sneaky method that websites use to load third-party tracking cookies so they can gather more information about who is visiting their site. The Brave browser As you may remember from our post about the best browsers for privacy and security...

Twitter makes the leap to Tor

Tor is getting another visibility boost for people who may not otherwise come into contact with it. The reason: an attempt to navigate increasing amounts of censorship. What is Tor? The Tor network is something designed to keep communications anonymous. A variety of tools exist to make use of it,...

Update now! Microsoft patches three zero-day vulnerabilities on Patch Tuesday

The updates for Microsofts March 2022 Patch Tuesday should fix 92 vulnerabilities, including three zero-day vulnerabilities. Of the 92 vulnerabilities, 21 are for Microsoft Edge and originate from the Chromium Project. Of the 71 others, three are classified as Critical because they allow remote...

FormBook spam campaign targets citizens of Ukraine️

Our Threat Intelligence team has been closely monitoring cyber threats related to the war in Ukraine. Today, we discovered a malicious spam campaign dropping the Formbook stealer specifically targeting Ukrainians. Formbook is part of a long-running malspam operation that we observe on a regular...

RagnarLocker ransomware gang breached 52 critical infrastructure organizations

In a FLASH publication issued by the FBI in coordination with DHS/CISA, the FBI says it has identified at least 52 organizations across 10 critical infrastructure sectors affected by RagnarLocker ransomware, including organizations in the critical manufacturing, energy, financial services,...

Azure AutoWarp brings automation headaches

Azure is Microsoft’s cloud computing service providing a wide range of features for businesses worldwide. It’s particularly popular for its virtual machines and IaaS infrastructure as a service. One useful Azure feature is Automation, which has been around for some years now. Management tasks can...

When fake dating profiles try the military approach

I’ve run into many romance scams over the years. You’ll find them lurking on social media, instant messaging, chatrooms/forums, and many more besides. They’re particularly popular during times of war or natural disaster, as they often dovetail into donation and charity scams. The icing on the cak...

Google takes on Docs notification spammers

Cloud-based document suites have always been a hot target for scammers. When it’s easy to dip in and out for collaboration purposes, or just share things generally, then its likely that bad people will want in on the action. In 2019, Google calendar users were wading through endless spam...

Update now! Mozilla patches two actively exploited vulnerabilities

Mozilla has announced it has fixed security vulnerabilities in Firefox 97.0.2, Firefox ESR 91.6.1, Firefox for Android 97.3.0, and Focus 97.3.0. Users should install the out-of-band security update as soon as possible, since it is designed to apply a fix for two vulnerabilities that are known to ...

The struggle to reduce bug-fixing time is real

There are many reasons why we want a bug fixed as soon as we can, but there are also plenty of reasons why doing it “right now” is not an option. This phenomenon starts at the side of the developers. The average time to fix a bug seems to vary depending on the platform the bug was found in. What ...

A week in security (February 28 – March 6)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Beware of malware offering “Warm greetings from Saudi Aramco” Update now! Cisco fixes several vulnerabilities HermeticWiper: A detailed analysis of the destructive malware that targeted Ukraine Tips to protect your data, security, and privacy from a hands-on expert...

Beware of malware offering “Warm greetings from Saudi Aramco”

Recently, the Malwarebytes Threat Intelligence Team found a Formbook campaign targeting oil and gas companies. The campaign they discovered was delivered by a targeted email that contained two attachments, one is a pdf file and the other an Excel document. Formbook The Formbook malware is an...

Update now! Cisco fixes several vulnerabilities

Cisco has released a security advisory about two vulnerabilities in the API and web-based management interfaces of Cisco Expressway Series and Cisco TelePresence Video Communication Server VCS. The flaws could allow an authenticated, remote attacker with read/write privileges to the application t...

HermeticWiper: A detailed analysis of the destructive malware that targeted Ukraine

This blog post was authored by Hasherezade, Ankur Saini and Roberto Santos Disk wipers are one particular type of malware often used against Ukraine. The implementation and quality of those wipers vary, and may suggest different hired developers. The day before the invasion on Ukraine by Russian...

Tips to protect your data, security, and privacy from a hands-on expert

This post was authored by one of the most active helpers on the Malwarebytes forums who wishes to remain anonymous. Back in the early days of personal computing, perhaps one of the only real concerns was data loss from a drive failure. That risk still exists, but we all face many other threats...

Nvidia, the ransomware breach with some plot twists

On February 25, news broke about a cyberattack on Nvidia, America’s biggest microchip company, which saw parts of its business taken offline for two days. Soon after, the ransomware group LAPSUS$ claimed responsibility and threatened to leak 1 TB in exfiltrated data. You would think that while th...

Don’t fall for the “Donate to help children in Ukraine” scam

Earlier this week, we spotted a Microsoft sign-in phish that appeared to be taking advantage of the Ukraine crisis in order to scam people. The email warned of unauthorized log in attempts to the recipients account, and the location of those attempts was listed as "Russia/Moscow". We probably won...

Four key cybersecurity practices during geopolitical upheaval

Russia’s continued invasion of Ukraine has altered the landscape of cybersecurity threats facing organizations both near and far from the physical threat of war. Disinformation is spreading and being actively fought. The old hacker group Anonymous promised “cyber war” against Russia. One ransomwa...

Biden wants stronger privacy protections, no targeted ads for children

On March 1, US President Joe Biden gave his first State of the Union Address SOTU speech to Congress. In it, Biden highlighted the dire need to get help for teens with mental health issues. He demanded tech companies implement more robust privacy protections for kids and teens using their online...

Google launches Chrome 99, fixes 28 vulnerabilities

The Chrome team announced the promotion of Chrome 99 to the stable channel for Windows, Mac and Linux on March 1, 2022. This will roll out over the coming days/weeks. In the desktop version, a total of 28 vulnerabilities were closed. Of these, 11 were classified as high, 15 as medium and two as...

Deepfake study suggests fakes can run but not hide

I have long said that Deepfakes missed the boat on being stealthy, believable pieces of footage able to turn the tide of elections or other major events. We’ve seen time and again how suggested examples of use during important happenings have been terrible, whereas the smart use has tended to be...

Meta blocks Russia-Ukraine disinformation campaigns on Facebook, Instagram

Meta says it has detected and removed two disinformation campaigns regarding the current Russia-Ukraine war. These campaigns, it says, were run by groups in Russia and Ukraine to target Ukraine users. In the post, Nathaniel Gleicher, Metas head of security policy, and David Agranovich, Metas...

Toyota’s just in time manufacturing faced with disruptive cyberattack

Toyota suspended the operation of 28 lines at 14 plants in Japan on Tuesday, March 1, after a cyberattack on supplier Kojima Industries Corp. Some plants operated by Toyotas affiliates Hino Motors and Daihatsu are included in the shutdown. Hino suspended all operations at its Koga facility, which...

The Conti ransomware leaks

On February 27, an individual with insights into the Conti ransomware group started leaking a treasure trove of data beginning with internal chat messages. Conti is responsible for a number of high profile attacks, including one against the Irish Healthcare system which has cost more than $48...

Data breaches leave customers very shaky, report says

Data breaches are one of the most reported cyberattacks against businesses—regardless of size and industry. And while this has highlighted cybersecurity gaps on so many fronts, some companies are still not prioritizing them as they should. Some have scrambled to be compliant but then find...