Anti-Malware Research

Weaponizing Facebook Ads: Inside the Multi-Stage Malware Campaign Exploiting Cryptocurrency Brands 2025-05-08 at 16:11 By Ionut Alexandru BALTARIU A persistent malvertising campaign is plaguing Facebook, leveraging the reputations of well-known cryptocurrency exchanges to lure victims into a maze of malware. Since Bitdefender Labs started investigating, this evolving threat has posed a serious risk by deploying […]

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Hundreds of Malicious Google Play-Hosted Apps Bypassed Android 13 Security With Ease 2025-03-18 at 15:34 By Alecsandru Cătălin DAJ Bitdefender’s security researchers have identified a large-scale ad fraud campaign that deployed hundreds of malicious apps in the Google Play Store, resulting in more than 60 million downloads total. The apps display out-of-context ads and even

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Lazarus Group Targets Organizations with Sophisticated LinkedIn Recruiting Scam 2025-02-05 at 16:03 By Ionut Alexandru BALTARIU Bitdefender Labs warns of an active campaign by the North Korea-linked Lazarus Group, targeting organizations by capturing credentials and delivering malware through fake LinkedIn job offers. LinkedIn may be a vital tool for job seekers and professionals, but it

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Inside Bitdefender Labs’ Investigation of a Malicious Facebook Ad Campaign Targeting Bitwarden Users 2024-11-19 at 12:33 By Andrei ANTON-AANEI Throughout 2024, Bitdefender Labs has been closely monitoring a series of malvertising campaigns that exploit popular platforms to spread malware. These campaigns use fake advertisements to lure users into installing malicious software disguised as legitimate apps

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Unmasking the SYS01 Infostealer Threat: Bitdefender Labs Tracks Global Malvertising Campaign Targeting Meta Business Pages 2024-10-30 at 15:33 By Ionut Alexandru BALTARIU In a digital world where advertising is king, businesses and organizations are not the only ones using this powerful tool. Cybercriminals have a knack for exploiting the engine that powers online platforms by

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When Stealers Converge: New Variant of Atomic Stealer in the Wild 2024-02-27 at 16:03 By Andrei LAPUSNEANU Here at Bitdefender, we’re constantly working on improving detection capabilities for our macOS cyber-security products; part of this effort involves revisiting old (or digging up new) samples from our mawlware zoo. During routine verifications, we were able to

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Details on Apple’s Shortcuts Vulnerability: A Deep Dive into CVE-2024-23204 2024-02-22 at 16:03 By Jubaer Alnazi JABIN CVE-2024-23204 [https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-23204] sheds light on the critical importance of continuous security vigilance. Apple’s Shortcuts application, designed to enhance user automation, can inadvertently become a potential vector for privacy breaches. This analysis aims to provide users, developers, and security

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Audio deepfakes: Celebrity-endorsed giveaway scams and fraudulent investment opportunities flood social media platforms 2024-02-14 at 16:01 By Nicolae POSTOLACHI Bitdefender Labs has been keeping up with the latest modus operandi of cybercrooks who adapt emerging technologies to siphon money from consumers. Artificial intelligence is just one of the many tools that help in the creation

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New MacOS Backdoor Written in Rust Shows Possible Link with Windows Ransomware Group 2024-02-08 at 22:31 By Andrei LAPUSNEANU Bitdefender researchers have discovered a new backdoor targeting Mac OS users. This previously undocumented family of malware is written in Rust and includes several interesting features. While the investigation is ongoing, we’re sending out this alert

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Investigating Worldwide SMS Scams, and Tens of Millions of Dollars in Fraud 2024-01-25 at 15:16 By Alexandra BOCEREG SMS services remain a critical part of telecommunications; they don’t require Internet access, and companies use them to inform their customers. This combination of features makes them incredibly useful for criminals who use the technology as a

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Stream-Jacking 2.0: Deep fakes power account takeovers on YouTube to maximize crypto-doubling scams 2024-01-18 at 15:02 By Ionut Alexandru BALTARIU As of October 2023, researchers at Bitdefender Labs have been actively keeping tabs [https://www.bitdefender.com/blog/labs/a-deep-dive-into-stream-jacking-attacks-on-youtube-and-why-theyre-so-popular/] on steam-jacking attacks against high-profile YouTube accounts used to conduct a myriad of crypto doubling scams. Fast forward to 2024; our

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Unveiling Mobile App Secrets: A 6-Month Deep Dive into Surprising Behavior Patterns 2024-01-08 at 14:02 By Silviu STAHIE Bitdefender launched in May 2023, an industry-first technology called App Anomaly Detection [https://www.bitdefender.com/blog/labs/app-anomaly-detection-technology-from-bitdefender-to-protect-against-yet-unknown-threats/] that gave the security solutions feature in our mobile security solution for Android the power to analyze app behavior and identify threats based on

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The anatomy of a scam: ‘Like YouTube Videos and Get Paid’ schemes 18/12/2023 at 16:02 By Nicolae POSTOLACHI Have you ever considered a remote job that only requires you to click the like or subscribe button on YouTube videos? If you have, we’re sorry to say it’s a scam. This month, researchers at Bitdefender Labs

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NodeStealer attacks on Facebook take a provocative turn – threat actors deploy malvertising campaigns to hijack users’ accounts 31/10/2023 at 16:04 By Andrei ANTON-AANEI Social media platforms offer immense opportunities for financially motivated threat actors to conduct large-scale attacks against unsuspecting Internet users. Fraudulent and malicious threats are prevalent on all social networks and it

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A Deep Dive into Stream-Jacking Attacks on YouTube and Why They’re So Popular 04/10/2023 at 16:03 By Ionut Alexandru BALTARIU Stream-jacking attacks have gained significant traction on large streaming services in recent months, with cybercriminals targeting high-profile accounts (with a large follower count) to send their fraudulent ‘messages’ across to the masses. Starting from the

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Fragments of Cross-Platform Backdoor Hint at Larger Mac OS Attack 14/09/2023 at 11:02 By Andrei LAPUSNEANU During routine detection maintenance, our Mac researchers stumbled upon a small set of files with backdoor capabilities that seem to form part of a more complex malware toolkit. The following analysis is incomplete, as we are trying to identify

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