A week in security (October 22 – 28)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we took a look at some new Mac malware, gave you a roundup of 2018 exploit kits, and dispensed some advice on sextortion scams. We also looked at the Cathay Pacific breach, groaned at the revival of an old browser trick, and explained how voting machines and...

Mobile Menace Monday: top five scariest mobile threats

In the spirit of this upcoming Halloween season, we thought we'd provide you with a list of the top five scariest mobile threats in our book. The list is organized from least to most haunting, based on my own humble opinion gathered from several years as a mobile threat researcher. Of course, my...

Scammers use old browser trick to create fake virus download

Tech support scammers are reusing an old technique in their existing browser locker browlock schemes to force a special kind of file download. Contrary to past attacks, where the purpose was to flood the machine with a large amount of file requests in order to crash the browser, this one is purel...

Huge breach affects 9 million Cathay Pacific customers

Airlines aren’t having a good time of things at the moment. Even if you managed to dodge the recent British Airways fallout, you may well be caught up in the latest breach affecting no fewer than 9 million customers of Cathay Pacific. So what was taken? The impact this time around isn’t so much...

Sextortion emails: They’re probably not watching you

Back in July, Krebs on Security reported on a rather novel scam, where the threat actor would use credentials from old data dumps to suggest that they had directly hacked the victim and obtained the victim's presumably sensitive browser history. Stolen credentials aside, sex-based extortion scams...

Exploit kits: fall 2018 review

Exploit kit EK activity continues to surprise us as the weather cools, the leaves change, and we move into the fall of 2018. Indeed, shortly after our summer review, a new exploit kit was discovered, and while no new vulnerabilities were added to the current EKs, several malvertising chains are...

Mac malware intercepts encrypted web traffic for ad injection

Last week, Malwarebytes researcher Adam Thomas found an interesting new piece of Mac malware that exhibits some troubling behaviors, including intercepting encrypted web traffic to inject ads. Let's take a closer look at this adware, which Malwarebytes for Mac detects as OSX.SearchAwesome, to see...

Compromising vital infrastructure: how voting machines and elections are vulnerable

In our first post in a series about vital infrastructure, we aim to explore how secure our voting machines—and our votes in general—are ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. Here, we ask ourselves: How can our infrastructure be compromised? What are the consequences, and how can we prevent...

A week in security (October 15 – 21)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we went over how to build your own motion-activated security camera, wondered whether FIDO is the future instrument to replace passwords and usernames, informed you about information operations on Twitter, and released our Q3 Malwarebytes Labs Cybercrime Tactics an...

Information operations on Twitter: new data released on election tampering

Back in April, we talked about the wealth of options available to Russian hackers and others launching social engineering campaigns, whether on social networks or through clever attacks launched via Advanced Persistent Threats. Some of that was information published by Twitter at the time in...

Is FIDO the future instrument to prove our identity?

FIDO, short for Fast IDentity Online, is an industry consortium started in 2013 to address the lack of interoperability among strong authentication devices and the problems users face creating and remembering multiple usernames and passwords. Among the founders were those who work in the financia...

How to build your own motion-activated security camera

Attention makers! Are you looking for a challenging project that not only gets your gears grinding but helps to keep you secure while traveling? Welcome to the build-your-own security camera tutorial. The impetus for this project originated from events that took place at Defcon 26, where hotel...

A week in security (October 8 – 14)

Last week, we warned you away from some dubious Doctor Who streams, explained how Endpoint Detection and Response may not be enough, and explored what happens during a confusing supply chain story. We also showed you how to keep up with security, explained the risks of fake browser updates, and...

Malwarebytes Labs Cybercrime Tactics and Techniques Report (CTNT) shows shift to business targets in Q3

Once again, it's that time of year: time for the quarterly Malwarebytes Labs Cybercrime Tactics and Techniques Report. Strap in your seat belts, folks, because the third quarter of 2018 was quite a wild ride. After a sleepy first two quarters, cybercriminals shook out the cobwebs and revved up...

Workplace violence: the forgotten insider threat

Organizations are no stranger to insider threats. In fact, for those who have been around long before the Internet, workplace violence, alongside spying is a problem many businesses have seen before and sought to address. However, the adoption and use of the Internet completely changed the way...

Fake browser update seeks to compromise more MikroTik routers

This blog post was authored by @hasherezade and Jérôme Segura. MikroTik, a Latvian company that makes routers and ISP wireless systems, has been dealing with several vulnerabilities affecting its products' operating system over the past few months. Ever since a critical flaw in RouterOS was...

6 ways to keep up with cybersecurity without going crazy

As we dive headfirst into National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, it seems only fitting to discuss ways to stay on top of developments in modern cybersecurity and privacy. What's the best way to stay protected? How can you determine if something is a scam? Which big company has been breached now?...

Bloomberg blunder highlights supply chain risks

Ooh boy! Talk about a back-and-forth, he said, she said story! No, we’re not talking about that Supreme Court nomination. Rather, we’re talking about Supermicro. Supermicro manufacturers the type of computer hardware that is used by technology behemoths like Amazon and Apple, as well as governmen...

When Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) is not enough

As cybercriminals continue to validate the reality that no prevention-based security control is going to stop every threat every time, companies are expanding beyond prevention-only approaches and closing the gap with endpoint detection and response solutions. But as we consider this strategy, on...

Avoid these Doctor Who Series 11 scams

The new season of Doctor Who has finally landed on television screens around the world, and we’ve started to see the first few signs of spam and other assorted nonsense lumbering online. A rash of YouTube accounts claiming to offer up the new series are making the rounds, all of which generally...

A week in security (October 1 – 7)

Last week, Malwarebytes welcomed National Cybersecurity Awareness Month by renewing our pledge to do what we do best: offer the best protection for our customers and promote security awareness for all. On Labs, we raised the question of whether it is a good idea to bring your own security or not,...

Fileless malware: part deux

In part one of this series, we focused on an introduction to the concepts fileless malware, providing examples of the problems that we in the security industry face when dealing with these types of attacks. In part two, I will be walking through a few demonstrations of fileless malware attacks th...

LoJack for computers used to attack European government bodies

Security researchers have detected the first known instance of a UEFI bootkit being used in targeted campaigns against government entities across Central and Eastern Europe. The attack focuses on UFEI-enabled computers and relies on a persistence mechanism that has been stolen from a legitimate,...

Bring your own security (BYOS): good idea or not?

We've talked about the concept of Bring Your Own Device, or BYOD, on the blog before. BYOD is a popular policy whereby employees can bring personally-owned devices, such as laptops, tablets, or smartphones, to work and use them to access data and applications. It helps to cut costs and can increa...

Fortnite gamers targeted by data theft malware

The new season of the incredibly popular video game Fortnite is upon us, and so too are the scams. It’s no surprise that con artists would jump on this bandwagon, eager to peddle their fakeouts. Only this time, scammers had something a little more dangerous in mind than your typical low-level...

A week in security (September 24 – 30)

Last week on Labs was a busy one. We discussed how SMS phishing attacks target the job market, issued a warning for TV Licensing phishes, commented on how Apple confused Safari users with recent changes to how OSX handles browser extensions, and elaborated on holes found in Mojave’s privacy...

Malwarebytes is a champion of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month

October is here. For most of us in the US cybersecurity industry, it’s the month when we commemorate National Cybersecurity Awareness Month NCSAM. For those who are unfamiliar with this campaign, NCSAM generally aims at driving awareness for safe Internet use, whether you're a regular consumer or...

Millions of accounts affected in latest Facebook hack

Update 2018-10-18: According to the Wall Street Journal, the hack on Facebook was perpetrated by spammers rather than a nation state. Facebook also revised its numbers down, saying that about 30 million accounts had been compromised. Facebook announced earlier today that its social network had be...

How to protect your data from Magecart and other e-commerce attacks

In today's golden age of online shopping, consumers take to the Internet, punch in a few credit card details, and happily receive products at their doorstep, safe in the knowledge that their online vendor is well-known, vetted, and therefore their website has to be secure, right? Dut did you know...

Phone spampocalypse: fighting back in the age of unwanted calls

When Nigel Guest, then president of the Council of Neighborhood Associations CNA, sent an email with the subject line, “test,” and the small letter “x” in its message body, the city of Berkeley, CA, went into a frenzy. You see, Mr. Guest thought he sent it only to himself, but he actually posted...

Buggy implementation of CVE-2018-8373 vulnerability used to deliver Quasar RAT

A variant of a remote code execution vulnerability with Internet Explorer's scripting engine known as CVE-2018-8373 patched last August has been found in the wild. Looking at the IOCs posted by our colleagues at TrendMicro, we recognized the infrastructure serving this exploit. The same static...

Holes found in Mojave’s privacy protection

macOS Mojave was released on Monday, September 24, with much promise of increased privacy protections. In particular, apps are now required to get permission from users before they can access data in certain locations, such as Mail data, contacts, calendar events, Safari user data, and more...

Safari users: Where did your extensions go?

Safari 12 has brought with it some changes to how OSX handles browser extensions. At WWDC in June, Apple announced that Safari would block legacy extensions installed from outside the Extensions Gallery, which itself would now be deprecated. As a replacement, Safari will now rely on "app...

100 channels and nothing on, except TV Licensing phishes

We’ve seen a lot of people referencing fake TV Licensing emails they’ve received over the last few days. The majority so far appear to be fake refund notices, asking potential victims to log in to a phony TV License website and provide payment details for refunds. It's definitely keeping customer...

Mobile Menace Monday: SMS phishing attacks target the job market

Recently, a co-worker received an enticing SMS message from ASPXPPZUPS Human Resources. It read: Tired of your old job? Join our team today, work from home and earn $6,200 per month: hire-me-zvcbrvpffy.hidden.com. Could it be that our dream job awaits via random text message? On the contrary, thi...

A week in security (September 17 – 23)

Last week, we took a look at a low level spam campaign on Twitter, explored the signs of falling victim to phishing, and examined a massive WordPress compromise. We also explained some SASL vulnerabilities and covered a breaking Emotet spam campaign. Other cybersecurity news: NewEgg attacked by...

Emotet on the rise with heavy spam campaign

The threat landscape is changing once again, now that the ocean of cryptocurrency miners has shrunk to a small lake. Over the last couple months, we've seen cybercriminals lean back on tried and true methods of financial theft and extortion, with the rise of a familiar Banking Trojan: Emotet...

Simple Authentication and Security Layer (SASL) vulnerabilities

Simple Authentication and Security Layer SASL is an authentication layer used in Internet protocols. SASL is not a protocol, but rather a framework that provides developers of applications and shared libraries with mechanisms for authentication, data integrity–checking, and encryption. Within the...

Mass WordPress compromises redirect to tech support scams

Content Management Systems CMSes such as WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla are under a constant barrage of fire. Earlier this year, we detailed several waves of attacks against Drupal, also known as Drupalgeddon, pushing browser-based miners and various social engineering threats. During the past few...

6 sure signs someone is phishing you—besides email

There are several common and, unfortunately, frequently successful avenues of attack that cybercriminals can use to part you from your personal contact and financial information. These phishing attack methods include email, phone calls, corrupted software or apps, social media, advertisements, an...

A month of giveaway spam on Twitter

We've observed a low level spam campaign working its way through Twitter, with just under 2,000 posts visible on public search since September 1. Click to enlarge The posts promote what appears to be CBD oil. For those who don't know And I was one of them—still not sure if this oil is supposed to...

A week in security (September 10 – 16)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we assessed the security of a portable router, identified ways to waste a scammer's time, named the many faces of omnichannel fraud, questioned the security of 2FAs, profiled a massive tech support scam operation, and exposed a new HMRC phishing campaign. Other...

HMRC phish swipes email login, payment details

It's not tax season in the UK, but that hasn't deterred scammers from sending out mail looking to swipe both card details and email logins in one fell swoop. The email, which claims UKGOV has issued a tax refund to the tune of 542.94 GBP, arrives under the following title, which is spectacularly...

Is two-factor authentication (2FA) as secure as it seems?

Two-factor authentication 2FA was invented to add an extra layer of security to the—now considered old-fashioned and insecure—simple login procedure of entering a username and password. One of the most well-known examples of 2FA is when you try to log into a familiar website from a different...

Partnerstroka: Large tech support scam operation features latest browser locker

Tech support scams continue to be one of the top consumer threats in 2018, despite actions from security vendors and law enforcement. Scammers are constantly looking for new ways to reel in more victims, going beyond cold calls impersonating Microsoft to rogue tech support ads using the good name...

The many faces of omnichannel fraud

The rise of new technologies, social networks, and other means of online communication have brought about compelling changes in industries across the board. For example, in retail, organizations use digital tools such as websites, email, and apps to reach out to their current and potential client...

5 safe ways to get back at spammers: a guide to wasting time

Everyone hates spam apart from the people who send it. While many people simply report spam and delete, a few look for ways to get back at the spammers wasting their time. In fact, a common question we’re asked is, “How can we waste their time?” My own opinion on this is a little loaded with...

A week in security (September 3 – 9)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we looked at spyware going mainstream, how the popular game Fortnite sparks security concerns for Android users, and how certain Mac App Store apps are stealing user data. Other cybersecurity news: Microsoft announced Windows 7 Extended Security Updates in a blog...

Assessing the security of a portable router: a look inside its hardware

Network administrators should perform security assessments of hardware that they will provide their users, or particularly paranoid users might want to poke at their devices just to be extra sure. In this blog post, we will demonstrate the techniques used to assess security on a generic portable...

Mac App Store apps are stealing user data

There is a concerning trend lately in the Mac App Store. Several security researchers have independently found different apps that are collecting sensitive user data and uploading it to servers controlled by the developer. This is referred to as exfiltrating the data. Some of this data is actuall...