ShinyHunters escalates Canvas attacks with school login defacements

Days after confirming a major data breach, Instructure is now facing a second blow. Earlier this week, Instructure confirmed a major data breach affecting its cloud‑hosted Canvas environment, with the ShinyHunters group claiming it stole hundreds of millions of records tied to thousands of school...

Massive AI investment scam network spans 15,500 domains

Researchers tracked a large AI‑themed investment scam campaign involving more than 15,000 domains. It uses cloaking and deepfakes to hide from security tools while targeting ordinary users. Criminals abused the Keitaro ad-tracking platform as part of a cloaking system so real victims see scam...

If a fake moustache can fool age checks, is the Online Safety Act working?

A report based on a survey by the UK’s Internet Matters shows that much of the responsibility for managing the online safety of children still falls on families. The Online Safety Act came into effect in July, 2025, and the report explores what has changed in the online lives of UK families since...

Google Chrome’s silent 4GB AI download problem [updated]

Google Chrome has been quietly downloading a 4GB AI model onto users' devices without asking first. Security researcher Alexander Hanff, aka ThatPrivacyGuy, reports that Chrome has been silently installing Gemini Nano, Google's on-device AI model, as a file called weights.bin stored in the...

Attackers adopt JavaScript runtime Bun to spread NWHStealer

In our previous research, we analyzed a Windows infostealer we track as NWHStealer. The attackers behind this stealer are continuously finding new methods to distribute the stealer. During our hunting activities, we noticed how attackers are using a JavaScript runtime called Bun to help distribut...

Millions of students’ personal data stolen in major education breach

Instructure, the company behind the Canvas learning management system LMS, confirmed a cyber incident and subsequent data breach affecting its cloud‑hosted environment. The ShinyHunters ransomware group claims it is behind the attack and says it stole roughly 275 million records tied to students,...

Update WhatsApp now: Two new flaws could expose you to malicious files

Meta has published a new security advisory for messaging app WhatsApp, announcing patches for two vulnerabilities. WhatsApp has fixed two security flaws that could be abused to interfere with how media and attachments are handled on your device. There is no evidence that either bug has been...

Cyberattacks are raising your prices (Lock and Code S07E09)

This week on the Lock and Code podcast… Your prices could be going up because of a little something that one group has started calling the “cyber tax.” Not a “tax” in any regulatory sense of the word, this newly named “cyber tax” is instead a consequence of the growing number of cyberattacks on...

Thousands of Facebook accounts stolen by phishing emails sent through Google

Researchers have uncovered a long-running phishing operation that abuses trusted Google services to hijack tens of thousands of Facebook accounts. The compromised Facebook accounts are mainly business and advertiser profiles, which criminals can monetize after gaining access and control. The...

The 2026 World Cup scam economy is already running before the first whistle

The FIFA World Cup 2026 is scheduled to begin June 11 across the US, Canada, and Mexico. The web is filling with sites impersonating ticket vendors, telecoms, sticker publishers, toy manufacturers, immigration services, and crypto projects, all linked to the World Cup brand. Together, they map ou...

A week in security (April 27 – May 3)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: 3 easy-to-miss cybersecurity risks for small businesses Actively exploited cPanel bug exposes millions of websites to takeover More PayPal emails hijacked to deliver tech support scams Hackers stole hundreds of thousands of Roblox accounts: Here’s what to do...

3 easy-to-miss cybersecurity risks for small businesses

There’s a lot to security that isn’t necessarily “cyber.” It’s not all hackers or complex network attacks. Alongside traditional cyberattacks that deploy malware or exploit known software vulnerabilities, there are also less technical—yet equally devastating—forms of theft. This doesn’t mean that...

Actively exploited cPanel bug exposes millions of websites to takeover

Security researchers are warning about a newly discovered vulnerability in the widely used web server management software cPanel and WebHost Manager WHM. This is a critical, actively exploited authentication-bypass bug in cPanel/WHM that lets attackers gain administrative access to the interface...

More PayPal emails hijacked to deliver tech support scams

Scammers have found another way to get deceptive messages delivered through PayPal’s legitimate services. In December 2025, we reported that PayPal closed a loophole that let scammers send real emails with fake purchase notices. In those cases, scammers created a PayPal subscription and then paus...

Hackers stole hundreds of thousands of Roblox accounts: Here’s what to do

More than 610,000 Roblox accounts were reportedly stolen. Was yours or your child's among them? Ukrainian police arrested three individuals in Lviv who allegedly orchestrated one of the largest Roblox account theft operations to date. Between October 2025 and January 2026, the hacking group is sa...

Researchers built a chatbot that only knows the world before 1931

The internet's chatbots have read every forum rant, leaked Slack log, and confident blog post your uncle ever wrote about chemtrails. The results are predictable: they reflect the state of the internet, and it isn't pretty. That, along with some questionable design decisions, is partly why Elon...

Microsoft won’t patch PhantomRPC: Feature or bug?

A researcher has discovered a weakness called PhantomRPC that Microsoft does not consider a vulnerability it plans to patch. PhantomRPC involves Windows Remote Procedure Call RPC, the core of communication between Windows processes. The vulnerability lets a process with impersonation rights...

Scam-checking just got a lot easier: Malwarebytes is now in Claude

For years, Malwarebytes has protected people by going where they are, and where people are today is increasingly within AI tools. As these chatbots tackle more everyday questions—like what to wear for an interview, how to replace a pendant light in the home, and where to eat during upcoming...

Fake CAPTCHA scam turns a quick click into a costly phone bill

Researchers have documented a long‑running campaign that uses fake CAPTCHA pages to trick mobile users into sending dozens of international SMS messages in the background. If you’ve spent any time on today’s web, CAPTCHAs may seem like background noise: click a few traffic lights, prove you’re...

Chinese engineer stole US military and NASA software for years

International espionage isn't always about sophisticated malware and zero-day bugs. Sometimes it's as simple as pretending to be someone else asking for a favor. For four years, a Chinese aerospace engineer did just that. Dozens of researchers at NASA, the US military, and major universities hand...

A week in security (April 20 – April 26)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Medical data of 500,000 UK volunteers listed for sale on Alibaba How cyberattacks on companies affect everyone Apple fixes iOS bug that kept deleted notifications, including chat previews Roblox clamps down on chats and age checks as legal pressure builds Malicious...

Medical data of 500,000 UK volunteers listed for sale on Alibaba

Half a million Britons signed up to help cure cancer. Their data ended up for sale on Alibaba. The UK Biobank charity informed the British government of an incident concerning the medical data belonging to 500,000 British citizens being offered for sale on the Chinese e-commerce website Alibaba...

How cyberattacks on companies affect everyone

If you use the internet, you’ve likely been affected by cybercrime in some way. Even when an attack is aimed at a company, the fallout usually lands on ordinary people. The most obvious harm is stolen data. When attackers break into a business, it is usually customer information that ends up in...

Apple fixes iOS bug that kept deleted notifications, including chat previews

Apple has released a software update that deals with an issue that could allow deleted notifications to be retrieved. Something that, in at least one reported case, was used by law enforcement during forensic analysis. Apple fixed the issue in iOS and iPadOS versions 18.7.8 and 26.4.2 check...

Roblox clamps down on chats and age checks as legal pressure builds

Roblox has long faced criticism over child safety on its platform. Now it has started settling with state attorneys over the issue, and the total is climbing fast. On April 21, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall announced a $12.2 million settlement with the child-focused online gaming...

Malicious trading website drops malware that hands your browser to attackers

During our threat hunting, we found a campaign using the same malware loader from our previous research to deliver a different threat: Needle Stealer , data-stealing malware designed to quietly harvest sensitive information from infected devices, including browser data, login sessions, and...

Researcher claims Claude Desktop installs “spyware” on macOS

Security researcher Alexander Hanff wrote an article titled Anthropic secretly installs spyware when you install Claude Desktop. Claims like that are bound to create two sides, so we searched for an official rebuttal by Anthropic. But we couldn’t find one. It would surprise me very much if they’d...

Fake Google Antigravity downloads are stealing accounts in minutes

Somebody went looking for Google’s new Antigravity coding tool this week, clicked download, ran the installer, and got exactly what they thought they were getting. Antigravity installed cleanly. A shortcut appeared on the desktop. The application opened and worked. Nothing looked or felt wrong. B...

Real Apple notifications are being used to drive tech support scams

Scammers have found a way to abuse legitimate Apple account notification emails to trick targets into calling fake tech support numbers. According to a report from BleepingComputer, scammers create an Apple account and insert a phishing message into the personal information fields, then modify th...

Android 17 ends all-or-nothing access to your contacts

Some of the apps on your phone want your contacts. Most don't need them all, but have been happily slurping up the lot for years. Google has decided to do something about that with the next version of Android. Android 17 currently in preview is introducing a new Contact Picker that lets users gra...

Big Tech can stop scams. They just don’t (Lock and Code S07E08)

This week on the Lock and Code podcast … A dreadful thing happens far too often whenever an older adult falls for a scam: They get blamed for it. Not the scammers who lied and cheated their victim out of money. Not law enforcement for failing to recover funds. Not even the Big Tech companies that...

Mythos: An AI tool too powerful for public release

Anthropic’s most capable model to date, Claude Mythos Preview aka Mythos, has been described as a “step change” in AI performance, especially on cybersecurity tasks. Anthropic tried to keep Mythos a secret until a few weeks ago, when a data leak revealed the existence of what the company said was...

A week in security (April 13 – April 19)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: This old-school scam is still working "Your shipment has arrived" email hides remote access software Browser Guard gets even better with Access Control "iCloud storage is full" scam is back, and now it wants your payment details A fake Slack download is giving...

This old-school scam is still working

When we read about this new malware tactic, or that novel social engineering approach, it’s easy to forget that there are scammers out there making a living from ancient methods. Recently, one of our researchers received this variation on the good old Nigerian advance-fee scam. From: Mrs.Inga-Bri...

“Your shipment has arrived” email hides remote access software

An attachment in an email impersonating DHL about a shipment contains a link to a preconfigured SimpleHelp remote access tool—an ideal starting point for attackers to explore a network, steal data, and drop additional malware. A German industrial spare parts and equipment supplier received an ema...

Browser Guard gets even better with Access Control

Have you ever been on a website when a pop-up suddenly asked for access to your camera, microphone, location, or notifications? Whether you clicked “allow,” dismissed it, or just wondered why it appeared, those permission requests aren’t always harmless. Some sites can abuse those permissions. Wi...

“iCloud storage is full” scam is back, and now it wants your payment details

A few months ago, we reported on a fake cloud storage alert that triggered a redirect chain to an app that has since been delisted from the Apple Store. The threat of losing your photos is a powerful lure, so scammers are now using it to steal personal and financial details. The Guardian warns...

A fake Slack download is giving attackers a hidden desktop on your machine

A trojanized Slack download from a typosquatting website is giving attackers something most users wouldn’t even know to look for: a hidden desktop running on their machine. The installer looks legitimate and even launches a working copy of Slack. But in the background, it can create an invisible...

Booking.com breach gives scammers what they need to target guests

Travel companies love telling you your data is safe. Booking.com just reminded everyone why that's a hard promise to keep. The Amsterdam-based booking giant began notifying customers on April 13 that "unauthorized third parties" had accessed guest reservation data. The compromised information...

AI clickbait can turn your notifications into a scam feed

Pushpaganda is the name researchers have given to an AI-assisted ad fraud, social engineering, and scareware operation targeting mobile users. For most people, Pushpaganda starts as something that looks completely normal. For example, a recommended article in your Google Discover feed the...

Fake YouTube copyright notices can steal your Google login

A convincing phishing campaign is going after YouTube creators, and if it works, attackers don't just steal your Google login. They can take over your entire Google account, including Gmail, your files, and payments, then hijack your YouTube channel and use your audience to run scams. The lure is...

From fake Proton VPN sites to gaming mods, this Windows infostealer is everywhere

We’ve uncovered multiple campaigns distributing an infostealer we track as NWHStealer , using everything from fake VPN downloads to hardware utilities and gaming mods. What makes this campaign stand out isn’t just the malware, but how widely and convincingly it’s being spread. Once installed, it...

April Patch Tuesday fixes two zero-days, including one under active attack

This month’s patch Tuesday looks to remediate 167 security vulnerabilities including two zero-day vulnerabilities, one of which is known to be actively exploited in the wild. This makes April one of those months where “Patch Tuesday” looks more like “patch the entire stack,” from servers and...

Credit Resources Vault: Why this credit email set off our scam alarms

If there is anything that annoys me more than a scammer, it's companies that behave like one, while staying just on the right side of the law. They manage to linger and disappoint customers for years. It's also why sometimes people think that Malwarebytes Scam Guard can be overly cautious when...

Omnistealer uses the blockchain to steal everything it can

A new infostealer dubbed Omnistealer is turning the blockchain into a permanent malware hosting platform, which is bad news for both companies and everyday users. It’s pretty common for malware to store its payload on a public platform, ideally one that adds some trustworthiness to the download...

ChatGPT under scrutiny as Florida investigates campus shooting

Chatbots don't kill people. But they can help others do so. On April 9, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced that his office is investigating OpenAI over the role ChatGPT might have played in a deadly shooting at Florida State University, saying: "Subpoenas are coming." The campus...

Simply opening a PDF could trigger this Adobe Reader zero-day

Opening the wrong PDF in Adobe Reader was enough to let criminals quietly spy on your computer and unleash more attacks, even though everything looked normal. A researcher analyzed a malicious PDF and found that it abused a previously unknown flaw a “zero‑day” in Adobe Acrobat Reader. When a vict...

A week in security (April 6 – April 12)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: Fake Claude site installs malware that gives attackers access to your computer ClickFix finds a new way to infect Macs Scammers pose as Amazon support to steal your account NSFW app leak exposes 70,000 prompts linked to individual users 30,000 private Facebook imag...

Fake Claude site installs malware that gives attackers access to your computer

Claude’s rapid growth—nearly 290 million web visits per month—has made it an attractive target for attackers, and this campaign shows how easy it is to fall for a fake site. We discovered a fake website impersonating Anthropic’s Claude to serve a trojanized installer. The domain mimics Claude's...

ClickFix finds a new way to infect Macs

ClickFix campaigns are looking for alternatives now that many Mac users have been made aware of the dangers of pasting certain commands into Terminal. Researchers found that ClickFix has kept the same social engineering playbook but completely sidestepped Terminal by using the applescript:// URL...