Cybersecurity in Cyberpunk 2077: the good, the bad, and the cringeworthy

What game caused some players to experience seizures, allows you to have unauthorized sex with Keanu Reeves, features a lead character who can’t keep the contents of his pants contained, was pulled from the PlayStation Store weeks after release, and still managed to shatter sales and streaming...

Romance scams: FTC reveals $304 million of heartache

In 2020, reported losses to the FTC for romance scams went up by 50% from 2019, totalling $304 million. And things werent exactly good before: Romance scams have cost people a fortune for 3 years running, according to the FTC. Their latest report suggests a steady rise in these kind of scams...

Clubhouse under scrutiny for sending data to Chinese servers

The audio-chat app Clubhouse is the latest rage in the social media landscape. What makes it so popular and, now its part of the social media landscape, can we trust it? The Clubhouse app Clubhouse was launched about a year ago and was initially only used by Silicon Valley’s rich and famous. It i...

Yandex sysadmin caught selling access to email accounts

Yandex, a European multinational technology firm best known for being the most-used search engine in Russia, has revealed it had a security breach, leading to the compromise of almost 5,000 Yandex email accounts. The company says it spotted the breach after a routine check by its security team...

RDP, the ransomware problem that won’t go away

The year 2020 will certainly be remembered as one of the most difficult and tragic years humankind has faced in modern times. The global pandemic changed the way we live and work in ways unimaginable, perhaps forever. It also altered the cybersecurity landscape dramatically. The FBI reported a 30...

Egregor ransomware hit by arrests

In a collaboration between French and Ukranian law enforcement, arrests have been made that might put a dent in one of the worlds most sophisticated ransomware operations. As reported first by France Inter, law enforcement made the arrests after French authorities traced ransom payments to...

Extortion, precision malware, and ruthless scams. Read the State of Malware 2021 report

Last year, threat actors took advantage of the COVID-19 public health crisis in a way previously considered unimaginable, not only preying on uncertainty and fear during the initial months of the global pandemic, but retooling attack methods, reneging on promises, strengthening malware, and...

Talking Emotet’s takedown with Adam Kujawa: Lock and Code S02E02

This week on Lock and Code, we discuss the top security headlines generated right here on Labs and around the Internet. In addition, we talk to Adam Kujawa, security evangelist and director of Malwarebytes Labs, about Emotet, the former public enemy No. 1 in the cybercrime world. What began in 20...

Gang arrested for SIM-swapping celebrities, stealing $100 million

The UKs National Crime Agency NCA—working alongside the US Secret Service, Homeland Security, the FBI, Europol, and the District Attorneys Office of Santa Clara California—spearheaded the arrest of eight British citizens in the UK and Scotland, aged between 18 to 26, for a string of SIM swapping...

Who is to blame for the malicious Barcode Scanner that got on the Google Play store?

In our last blog, Barcode Scanner app on Google Play infects 10 million users with one update, we wrote about a barcode scanner found on the Google Play store that was infected with Android/Trojan.HiddenAds.AdQR. All initial signs led us to believe that LavaBird LTD was the developer of this...

Malvertising campaign on PornHub and other top adult brands exposes users to tech support scams

Threat actors involved in tech support scams have been running a browser locker campaign from November 2020 until February 2021 on the worlds largest adult platforms including PornHub. The same group behind this campaign has been active for much longer and we believe is tied to previous schemes...

Nude photo theft offers lessons in selfie security

Two former college graduates are in a lot of trouble after breaking into other students accounts and stealing sensitive personal data. They’re facing some serious charges with restitution payments of $35,430, potential jail time, and the threat of very big fines thrown into the mix. What happened...

Researcher’s audacious hack demonstrates new type of supply-chain attack

Often the most brilliant ideas are the most simple. The hard part is being the first one to come up with the idea and put it to use. One such brilliant yet simple idea belongs to Alex Birsan, a researcher who came up with a method to breach 35 big tech companies including Microsoft, Apple, Yelp,...

What Google learned from 1 billion evil email scams

Google and researchers at Stanford University have released an in-depth study analysing 5 months of phishing / malware mails sent globally. "Who is targeted by email-based phishing and malware? Measuring factors that differentiate risk" looked at more than a billion mails. The results were then f...

Big Patch Tuesday: Microsoft and Adobe fix in-the-wild exploits

Traditionally the second Tuesday of the month is Microsoft’s “patch Tuesday”. This is the day when they roll out all the available patches for their software, and their operating systems in particular. Since there were no less than 56 patches in this month’s issue we will focus on the most...

Hackers try to poison Florida City’s drinking water

The FBI, the Secret Service, and the Pinellas County Sheriffs Office are currently investigating an attempted poisoning of a city by an individual or group of hackers that occurred Friday last week. If it hadnt been caught in time, at least 15,000 people could have been affected. In a Monday pres...

Cyberpunk 2077 developer hit by ransomware

CD PROJEKT RED, the game developer behind Cyberpunk 2077, announced earlier on Twitter that it has fallen victim to a targeted ransomware attack. The company says it has backups for the affected systems and does not intend to pay the ransom. In their ransom note the attackers boast that they have...

Android devices caught in Matryosh botnet

Researchers at Netlab have discovered a new botnet that re-uses the Mirai framework to pull vulnerable Android devices into DDoS attacks. The new botnet, which is called Matryosh, is named after the Russian nesting dolls because the encryption algorithm it uses, and the process of obtaining comma...

How NOT to fail at PDF redaction

The heated spat between Europe and AstraZeneca over a contract has segued into an unexpected blunder that left many of us chuckling and surprised at the same time. Perhaps even feeling a bit awkward. Recently, the European Commission published a PDF version of the contract it had with AstraZeneca...

A week in security (February 1 – February 7)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we dug into a load of security events. We first peered into how Fonix ransomware was giving up the ghost, swearing off a life of crime and even apologizing for past actions. We looked at a credit card skimmer that found opportunity in the latest Magento 1 hacking...

Barcode Scanner app on Google Play infects 10 million users with one update

UPDATE: February 12, 2021 It has come to our attention that there is another bad actor in this story. Apparently, the original publisher, LAVABIRD LTD, is not the bad actor. It is instead an account under the name "The space team." Nevertheless, there is evidence that updates of Barcode Scanner b...

Android emulator abused to introduce malware onto PCs

Emulators have played a part in many tech-savvy users’ lives. They introduce a level of flexibility that not only allows another system to run on top of a user’s operating system—a Windows OS running on a MacBook laptop, for example—but also allows video gamers to play games designed to work on a...

Update now! Chrome patches zero-day that was exploited in the wild

A Chrome patch has been issued with an advisory stating that the Stable channel has been updated to 88.0.4324.150 for Windows, Mac and Linux. The only noteworthy thing about this update is a patch for a zero-day vulnerability that has been actively exploited in the wild. But that one looks to be...

Would real identities make social media safer?

“Use real identities to reduce abuse online” is a talking point youve almost certainly seen down the years. It also seems to come around like clockwork every other month, and is currently a hot topic in the UK after prominent journalists / media personalities raised the issue. It’s an interesting...

Browser sync—what are the risks of turning it on?

Modern browsers include synchronization features like Google Chromes Sync so that all your browsers, on all your devices, share the same tabs, passwords, plugins, and other features. While this is certainly convenient, particularly when youre migrating to a new device, synchronizing browsers also...

Credit card skimmer piggybacks on Magento 1 hacking spree

Back in the fall of 2020 threat actors started to massively exploit a vulnerability in the no-longer maintained Magento 1 software branch. As a result, thousands of e-commerce shops were compromised and many of them injected with credit card skimming code. While monitoring activities tied to this...

Fonix ransomware gives up life of crime, apologizes

Ransomware gangs deciding to pack their bags and leave their life of crime is not new, but it is a rare thing to see indeed. And the Fonix ransomware also known as FonixCrypter and Xinof, one of those ransomware-as-a-service RaaS offerings, is the latest to join the club. End of FonixCrypter...

A week in security (January 25 – January 31)

January 28 was Data Privacy Day, but for Malwarebytes Labs, it was Data Privacy Week. As such, were packed with more privacy coverage than you can shake a stick at, starting with some practical steps on how to make your online life private and secure, and why privacy is core to a safer internet. ...

Cleaning up after Emotet: the law enforcement file

This blog post was authored by Hasherezade and Jérôme Segura Emotet has been the most wanted malware for several years. The large botnet is responsible for sending millions of spam emails laced with malicious attachments. The once banking Trojan turned into loader was responsible for costly...

RDP abused for DDoS attacks

We have talked about RDP many times before. It has been a popular target for brute force attacks for a long time, but attackers have now found a new way to abuse it. Remote access has become more important during the pandemic, with as many people as possible try to work from home. Which makes it...

$12m Grindr fine shows GDPR’s got teeth

As thoughts turn to Data Privacy this week in a big way, GDPR illustrates it isnt an afterthought. Grindr, the popular social network and dating platform, will likely suffer a $12 million USD fine due to privacy related complaints. What happened here, and what are the implications for future case...

3 tips to top up your privacy

Its Data Privacy Day—the perennial event that many internet users may have never heard of, but have strong feelings and opinions about the very things that birthed it in the first place. Originally created to help businesses learn about why online privacy matters, its reach has since extended to...

Why Data Privacy Day matters: A Lock and Code special with Mozilla, DuckDuckGo, and EFF

You can read our full-length blog here about the importance of Data Privacy Day and data privacy in general Today is a special day, not just because January 28 marks Data Privacy Day in the United States and in several countries across the world, but because it also marks the return of our hit...

Why Data Privacy Day matters

Our Lock and Code special episode on Data Privacy Day, featuring guests from Mozilla, DuckDuckGo, and Electronic Frontier Foundation can be listened to here. Today, January 28, is Data Privacy Day, the annual, multinational event in which governments, companies, and schools can inform the public...

Pow! Emotet’s down. Is it out?

In a coordinated action, multiple law enforcement agencies have seized control of the Emotet botnet. Agencies from eight countries worked together to deliver what they hope will be a decisive blow against one of the worlds most dangerous and sophisticated computer security threats. The Emotet...

Google FLoC puts ad trackers on a cookie-free diet

Cookie tracking is dying and Google needs a replacement. Its betting on FLoC, an ad tracking technology that lets it understand peoples behaviour while respecting their privacy. Google has announced that its tests show promising signs that FLoC is working. Is this a milestone on the road to more...

A week in security (January 18 – January 24)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we looked at changes to WhatsApp’s privacy policy, we provided information about Malwarebytes being targeted by the same threat actor that was implicated in the SolarWinds breach, we told the story of ZeroLogon, looked at the pros and cons of Zoom watermarking,...

Chrome wants to make your passwords stronger

A common sentiment, shared by many people down the years, is that storing passwords in browsers is a bad idea. Malware, for example, would specifically target password storage in browsers and plunder everything in sight. Password managers weren’t exactly flying off the shelves back in 2007, your...

Are TikTok’s new settings enough to keep kids safe?

TikTok, the now widely popular social media platform that allows users to create, share, and discover, amateur short clips—usually something akin to music videos—has been enjoying explosive growth since it appeared in 2017. Since then, it hasn’t stopped growing—more so during the current pandemic...

DNSpooq bugs haunt dnsmasq

The research team at JSOF found seven vulnerabilities in dnsmasq and have dubbed them DNSpooq, collectively. Now, some of you may shrug and move on, probably because you havent heard of dnsmasq before. Well, before you go, you should know that dnsmasq is used in a wide variety of phones, routers,...

Zoom watermarking: pros and cons

Metadata, which gives background information on pieces of data, is typically hidden. It becomes a problem when accidentally revealed. Often tied to photography mishaps, it can be timestamps. It might be location. In some cases, it can be log analysis. Many tutorials exist to strip this informatio...

The story of ZeroLogon

This is the story of a vulnerability that was brought about by the incorrect use of an encryption technique. After it was discovered by researchers, the vulnerability was patched and that should have been the end of the story. Unfortunately the patch caused problems of its own, which made it very...

Malwarebytes targeted by Nation State Actor implicated in SolarWinds breach. Evidence suggests abuse of privileged access to Microsoft Office 365 and Azure environments

A nation state attack leveraging software from SolarWinds has caused a ripple effect throughout the security industry, impacting multiple organizations. We first reported on the event in our December 14 blog and notified our business customers using SolarWinds asking them to take precautionary...

What’s up with WhatsApp’s privacy policy?

WhatsApp has been in the news recently after changes to its privacy policy caused a surge of interest in rival messaging app Signal. Initial reports may have worried a lot of folks, leading to inevitable clarifications and corrections. But what, you may ask, actually happened? Is there a problem?...

A week in security (January 11 – January 17)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we looked at IoT problems, Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday, and how cybercriminals want access to your cloud services. We also explored how VPNs can protect your privacy, and asked if MSPs have picked the right PSA. Other cybersecurity news Hot phishing targets: Some...

MSPs, have you picked the right PSA for you yet?

Not long ago, we helped MSPs pick the right remote monitoring and management RMM platform for them, and make it an essential part of their service toolkit. As you may recall, an RMM is a tool that helps MSPs do the work. And what better way to track the work—and other elements associated with...

How a VPN can protect your online privacy

Have you ever experienced the feeling of relief that comes when you do something silly, but youre glad you did it where people dont know you? Or maybe you wished you were somewhere like that, but alas… That is what a Virtual Private Network VPN can do for you: it can put you in a place where you...

Cybercriminals want your cloud services accounts, CISA warns

On January 13 the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA issued a warning about several recent successful cyberattacks on various organizations’ cloud services. What methods did the attackers use? In the initial phase, the victims were targeted by phishing emails trying to capture...

Microsoft issues 83 patches, one for actively exploited vulnerability

Every second Tuesday of the month its Patch Tuesday. On Patch Tuesday Microsoft habitually issues a lot of patches for bugs and vulnerabilities in its software. Its always important to patch, but the update that was released on January 12 is one to pay attention to. Thats because it contains a...

Ubiquiti breach, and other IoT security problems

Networking equipment manufacturer Ubiquiti sent out an email to warn users about a possible data breach. The email stated there had been unauthorized access to its IT systems that are hosted with a third-party cloud provider. Ubiquiti Networks sells networking devices and IoT devices. It did not...