Mice “taking over the world!”, one Windows machine at a time

Famously, Pinky and the Brain were a pair of animated mice that wanted to take over the world. Of course they never succeed, but maybe they just set their sights too high. Because while mice may not be taking over the world yet, they are taking over computers. In the last week, security researche...

Criminals exploited weak checks and old tech to pull off vast COVID benefit fraud

In life, when you encounter something momentuous—a sudden job loss, a routine check-up that revealed an illness you cant afford the medical bills for—you can be assured that the federal or state government has benefits you can apply for it. And where there are benefits, you can also be assured th...

Realtek-based routers, smart devices are being gobbled up by a voracious botnet

A few weeks ago we blogged about a vulnerability in home routers that was weaponized by the Mirai botnet just two days after disclosure. Mirai hoovers up vulnerable Internet of Things IoT devices and adds them to its network of zombie devices, which can then be used to launch huge Distributed...

Patch now! Microsoft Exchange is being attacked via ProxyShell

Last Saturday the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued an urgent warning that threat actors are actively exploiting three Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities—CVE-2021-34473, CVE-2021-34523, and CVE-2021-31207. These vulnerabilities can be chained together to remotely execute...

A week in security (August 16 – August 22)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Podcast: Katie Moussouris hacked Clubhouse. Her emails went unanswered for weeks. How to troubleshoot hardware problems that look like malware problems. Analysts “strongly believe” the Russian state colludes with ransomware gangs. macOS 11’s hidden security...

New variant of Konni malware used in campaign targetting Russia

This blog post was authored by Hossein Jazi In late July 2021, we identified an ongoing spear phishing campaign pushing Konni Rat to target Russia. Konni was first observed in the wild in 2014 and has been potentially linked to the North Korean APT group named APT37. We discovered two documents...

Largest DDoS attack ever reported gets hoovered up by Cloudflare

On the Cloudflare blog, the American web infrastructure behemoth that provides content delivery network CDN and DDoS mitigation services reports that it detected and mitigated a 17.2 million request-per-second rps DDoS attack. To put that number in perspective. The company reports that this is...

Cisco Small Business routers vulnerable to remote attacks, won’t get a patch

In a security advisory, Cisco has informed users that a vulnerability in the Universal Plug-and-Play UPnP service of Cisco Small Business RV110W, RV130, RV130W, and RV215W routers could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code or cause an affected device to restart...

T-Mobile customers, change your PINs

At the end of last week, T-Mobile was investigating reports of a “massive” customer data breach. A hacker claimed to stolen 100 million people’s data from T-Mobile’s servers, which included everything from names and driver licences to addresses and social security numbers. Its now confirmed...

Beware of COVID Pass scams

You’ve likely seen fake parcel delivery texts in the news recently, and we’ve covered a few of these ourselves. SMS missives claim a package is waiting to be delivered, and a small processing fee is required. There is no package; it’s a ruse to have people hand over their credit card details. It’...

Cars and hospital equipment running Blackberry QNX may be affected by BadAlloc vulnerability

Following an announcement by Blackberry the U.S. Food & Drug Administration FDA and the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency CISA have put out alerts that vulnerabilities found in the Blackberry QNX real-time operating system RTOS may introduce risks for certain medical devices...

How to spot a DocuSign phish and what to do about it

Phishing scammers love well known brand names, because people trust them, and their email designs are easy to rip off. And the brands phishers like most are the ones youre expecting to hear from, or wouldnt be surprised to hear from, like Amazon or DHL. Now you can add DocuSign to that list...

macOS 11’s hidden security improvements

A deep dive into macOS 11s internals reveals some security surprises that deserve to be more widely known. Contents 1. Introduction 1. Disclaimers 2. macOS 11s better known security improvements 1. Secret messages revealed? 3. CPU security mitigation APIs 1. The NOSMT mitigation 2. The TECS...

Analysts “strongly believe” the Russian state colludes with ransomware gangs

"We have the smoke, the smell of gunpowder and a bullet casing. But we do not have the gun to link the activity to the Kremlin." This is what Jon DiMaggio, Chief Security Stretegist for Analyst1, said in an interview with CBS News following the release of its latest whitepaper, entitled "Nation...

Katie Moussouris hacked Clubhouse. Her emails went unanswered for weeks: Lock and Code S02E15

Nearly one year after the exclusive app Clubhouse launched on the iOS store, its popularity skyrocketed. The app, which is now out of beta, lets users drop into spontaneous audio conversations that, once they are over, are over. With COVID lockdown procedures separating many people around the wor...

How to troubleshoot hardware problems that look like malware problems

Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what exactly is going wrong with your computer. What do you do if you’ve run all the scans, checked all the files, and everything says the PC is malware free? Here’s a list of common problems that resemble cybersecurity issues, but could be caused by something...

A week in security (August 9 – August 15)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Home routers are being hijacked using a vulnerability disclosed just 2 before Ransomware turncoat leaks Conti data, lifts the lid on the ransomware business Check your passwords! Synology NAS devices are under attack from StealthWorker PrintNightmare and RDP RCE...

Phishing campaign goes old school, dusts off Morse code

In an extensive report about a phishing campaign, the Microsoft 365 Defender Threat Intelligence Team describes a number of encoding techniques that were deployed by the phishers. And one of them was Morse code. While Morse code may seem like ancient communication technology to some, it does have...

Crypto-scams you should be steering clear of in 2021

A fair few cryptocurrency scams have been doing the rounds across 2021. Most of them are similar if not identical to tactics used in previous years with an occasional twist. Here’s some of the most visible ones you should be steering clear of. Recovery code theft Many Bitcoin wallets make use of...

VPN Test: How to check if your VPN is working or not

The primary function of a Virtual Private Network VPN is to enhance your online privacy and security. It should do this without slowing your Internet too noticeably. Performing a VPN test or two can help you ensure that its up to the mark. VPN privacy test Your Internet Service Provider ISP assig...

Cyberbullying 101: A Primer for kids, teens, and parents

At some point in our lives, we have likely either been bullied, stood back and watched others bullying, or participated in the act. Playing the role of offender, offended, and by-stander has become easier, thanks to the Internet and the technologies that make it possible to keep up connected. In...

Microsoft’s PrintNightmare continues, shrugs off Patch Tuesday fixes

I doubt if there has ever been a more appropriate nickname for a vulnerable service than PrintNightmare. There must be a whole host of people in Redmond having nightmares about the Windows Print Spooler service by now. PrintNightmare is the name of a set of vulnerabilities that allow a standard...

Twitter says it out loud: Removing anonymity will not stop online abuse

An investigation by Twitter into racist tweets levied against three Black players on the English football team following the national hopefuls’ loss against Italy last month revealed that anonymity played almost no role in whether users posted abusive comments from their accounts. The analysis,...

If a QR code leads you to a Bitcoin ATM at a gas station, it’s a scam

Rogue QR code antics have been back in the news recently. They’re not exactly a mainstay of fakery, but they do tend to enjoy small waves of popularity as events shaped by the real world remind everyone they still exist. The most notable example where this is concerned is of course the pandemic...

Thief pulls off colossal, $600m crypto-robbery …and gives the money back

The largest crypto-robbery in history is rapidly turning into the most bizarre as well. Lets start at the beginning… In an apparent scream for mercy, 21 hours ago the Poly Network Team reached out via Twitter to “hackers” that had managed to transfer roughly $600 million in digital tokens out of...

PrintNightmare and RDP RCE among major issues tackled by Patch Tuesday

The sheer number of patches 44 security vulnerabilities should be enough to scare us, but unfortunately we have gotten used to those numbers. In fact, 44 is a low number compared to what we have seen on recent Patch Tuesdays. So what are the most notable vulnerabilities that were patched. One...

Check your passwords! Synology NAS devices under attack from StealthWorker

Synology PSIRT Product Security Incident Response Team has put out a warning that it has recently seen and received reports about an increase in brute-force attacks against Synology devices. PSIRT suspects the botnet commonly known as StealthWorker is responsible for this increase in activity...

Ransomware turncoat leaks Conti data, lifts the lid on the ransomware business

Last week, The Record broke the news that a self-described "pen tester" for the infamous Conti ransomware gang, who goes by the handle m1Geelka, had leaked manuals, technical guides, and software on the underground forum XSS. According to the screenshot of m1Geelkas original forum post—and...

Home routers are being hijacked using vulnerability disclosed just 2 days ago

The early bird catches the worm. Unless the worm was early enough to hide. On August 3, 2021 a vulnerability that was discovered by Tenable was made public. Only two days later, on August 5, Juniper Threat Labs identified some attack patterns that attempted to exploit this vulnerability in the...

A week in security (August 2 – August 8)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: RDP brute force attacks explained The 3 biggest threats reaching for your antivirus software’s off switch Zoom and gloom? Video comms org agrees to settle for $85m COVID-19 vaccine appointment system attacked in Italy Chrome casts away the padlock - is it good...

Apple’s search for child abuse imagery raises serious privacy questions

The Internet has been on fire since the August 4 discovery disclosed publicly by Mathew Green that Apple will be monitoring photos uploaded to iCloud for child sexual abuse material CSAM. Some see this as a great move by Apple that will protect children. Others view this as a potentially dangerou...

Edge’s Super Duper Secure Mode benchmarked: How much speed would you trade for security?

In an attempt to make Edge more secure, the Microsoft Vulnerability Research team has started to experiment with disabling Just-In-Time JIT compilation in the browsers V8 JavaScript engine, to create what its calling Super Duper Secure Mode. The reasoning behind this experiment sounds valid. A...

Amazon will pay you $10 for your palm prints. Should you be worried?

Retail giant Amazon recently offered to pay $10 USD for your palm prints. Would you offer them your hand? Many seem to home in and seethe over the price being too little for something as priceless and unique as their palm print, not realizing that when it does come to registering biometric data i...

What is Tor?

Tor, The Onion Router Tor The Onion Router is free software used to keep your online communications safe and secure from outside observers. It’s designed to block tracking and eavesdropping, resist fingerprinting where services tie your browser and device information to an identity, and to hide t...

NSA issues advice for securing wireless devices

By releasing an information sheet that provides guidance on securing wireless devices while in public pdf—for National Security System, Department of Defense, and Defense Industrial Base teleworkers—the NSA has provided useful information on malicious techniques used by cyber actors, and ways to...

Chrome casts away the padlock—is it good riddance or farewell?

It’s been an interesting journey for security messaging where browsers are concerned. Back in the day, many of the websites you’d visit on a daily basis weren’t secure. By secure, I mean that they didnt use HTTPS. There was no padlock, which meant that the traffic between you and the website wasn...

COVID-19 vaccine appointment system attacked in Italy

In another cyberattack on a healthcare system, threat-actors have tried to throw a wrench into the ongoing COVID-19 vaccine roll-out in the region of Lazio, Italy. The large and densely populated region is the countrys second most populous and includes the countrys capital, Rome. On Sunday the...

Zoom and gloom? Video comms org agrees to settle for $85m

Zoom has agreed to an $85m settlement regarding privacy, zoom-bombing, and data sharing. The class action privacy lawsuit filed in the US against the embattled company wasn’t particularly impressed with the following: Zoom-bombing running wild in video sessions. Zoom-bombing, the practice of...

The 3 biggest threats reaching for your antivirus software’s off switch

Having antivirus AV software on your computer is a staple. Modern antivirus offers layered protection—a cybersecurity approach that uses multiple techniques in one package to keep you safe if you download a malicious file from the Internet, find yourself worrying after clicking a link on a direct...

RDP brute force attacks explained

While you read these words, the chances are that somebody, somewhere, is trying to break in to your computer by guessing your password. If your computer is connected to the Internet it can be found, quickly, and if it can be found, somebody will try to break in. And it isnt like the movies. The...

A week in security (July 26 – August 1)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: OSX.XLoader hides little except its main purpose: What we learned in the installation process. The Clubhouse database “breach” is likely a non-breach. Here’s why. Kaseya Unitrends has unpatched vulnerabilities that could help attackers expand a breach. UDP Technolo...

Disaster planning with Lesley Carhart, and the slim chance of a critical infrastructure “big one”: Lock and Code S02E14

The 2021 attacks on two water treatment facilities in the US—combined with ransomware attacks on an oil and gas supplier and a meat and poultry distributor—could lead most people to believe that a critical infrastructure “big one” is coming. But, as Lesley Carhart, principal threat hunter with...

LemonDuck no longer settles for breadcrumbs

LemonDuck has evolved from a Monero cryptominer into LemonCat, a Trojan that specializes in backdoor installation, credential and data theft, and malware delivery, according to the Microsoft 365 Defender Threat Intelligence Team, which explained their findings in a two-part story 12 on the...

Spear-phishing now targets employees outside the finance and executive teams, report says

Social engineering attacks have been a longstanding concern for both individuals and organizations alike. The trend, as we know it, is that fraudsters conducting spear phishing attacks—specifically, business email compromise BEC—are likely to target employees either in the finance or executive...

Microsoft provides more mitigation instructions for the PetitPotam attack

In a revision of KnowledgeBase article KB5005413, Microsoft has provided more elaborate mitigation instructions for the PetitPotam attacks that were disclosed a week ago. PetitPotam is the name for an attack method using a bug that was found by a security researcher who also published a...

Crimea “manifesto” deploys VBA Rat using double attack vectors

This blog post was authored by Hossein Jazi. On July 21, 2021, we identified a suspicious document named "Манифест.docx" "Manifest.docx" that downloads and executes two templates: one is macro-enabled and the other is an html object that contains an Internet Explorer exploit. While both technique...

BlackMatter, a new ransomware group, claims link to DarkSide, REvil

Theres a new ransomware gang in town—and, frankly, were not at all surprised. After DarkSide disappeared—coincidentally, immediately after Colonial Pipeline gave in to the groups ransom demand of roughly $5M USD worth in Bitcoin—a new ransomware group who calls themselves BlackMatter surfaced on...

The Olympics: a timeline of scams, hacks, and malware

The 2020 Olympics are, after a bit of a delayed start, officially in full swing. So too is the possibility for scammers to crawl out of the woodwork. And while actual, measurable cyberrattacks and hacks surrounding The Olympics did not truly get rolling until 2008 in Beijing, The Olympic games ha...

UDP Technology IP Camera firmware vulnerabilities allow for attacker to achieve root

Researchers at RandoriSec have found serious vulnerabilities in the firmware provided by UDP Technology to Geutebrück and many other IP camera vendors. According to the researchers the firmware supplier UDP Technology fails to respond to their reports despite numerous mails and LinkedIn messages...

Kaseya Unitrends has unpatched vulnerabilities that could help attackers expand a breach

It must not be easy to work at Kaseya right now. While they are working as hard as they can to help customers, and customers of their customers, recover from the REvil ransomware attack at the beginning of July, a new vulnerability in their software has been disclosed. As a sidenote, Kaseya...