On September 15 this year, Google published details of patches for 110 vulnerabilities in its own Google Pixel smartphones. Among all the disclosed flaws, CVE-2026-58704 stands out the most, for it appears that this zero-day is being exploited in targeted attacks.

In today’s post, we talk about what’s so special about the Google Pixel, and why these devices get security updates all of their own – separate from regular Android updates. We also cover the vulnerabilities addressed in this latest update, with a special focus on the mentioned, most dangerous one – CVE-2026-58704 – and wrap up with tips on how to both protect your device and avoid becoming a victim of cyberattack on it.

Why do Google Pixel phones get security updates separate from Android?

The reader might reasonably wonder: I’ve already installed this month’s Android security updates on my Google Pixel. Isn’t that the same thing? Google Pixel does run on Android and receives those security updates, which are detailed in the monthly Android Security Bulletin. However, manufacturers of Android-based devices use different sets of hardware and software components. That’s why, alongside vulnerabilities common to all Android devices, there are security issues specific to individual manufacturers’ devices.

For its own smartphones, Google publishes separate security updates, covered by a dedicated Pixel Update Bulletin. Rather than replacing the Android Security Bulletin, this document complements it by detailing vulnerabilities specific to devices manufactured by Google. Other Android smartphones also receive similar updates from their manufacturers.

The Pixel Update Bulletin for September 2026 clearly shows why Google needs separate updates for its smartphones in the first place. Many of the vulnerabilities it fixes affect specific Pixel hardware (or hardware-related) components: the modem, bootloader, GPU, fingerprint scanner components, and other parts of the device. On smartphones from other manufacturers, these features might rely on entirely different hardware and software components, so the fixes listed in the Pixel Update Bulletin don’t apply to those phones.

That said, these vulnerabilities could still be relevant for Pixel owners who’ve flashed their devices with custom ROMs. Switching to a different OS doesn’t alter the device’s hardware components, and may not replace the firmware. Therefore, the vulnerabilities themselves may persist, but whether patches are available, and how they’re installed, depends on the specific OS.

CVE-2026-58704: a zero-day vulnerability being actively exploited in the wild

Now let’s look closer at the specific vulnerabilities Google fixed in September. The most significant one is the above-mentioned CVE-2026-58704.

This vulnerability affects the Cellular Modem component, which handles the smartphone’s communication with cellular networks. It stems from a logic error in the code, which, under certain conditions, allows bypassing the intended permission check.

Successful exploitation of CVE-2026-58704 lets attackers escalate privileges on the smartphone to gain broader access to its functions and data. Note that the attack takes place over a cellular network and the threat actors need low-level privileges on the targeted device to start with.

In practice, this means attackers can’t exploit CVE-2026-58704 to attack a Pixel from just anywhere over the internet, as they’d apparently need to either compromise the cellular network the target smartphone is already connected to or, more likely, force it to connect to a malicious base station under their control.

Google hasn’t disclosed all the details of this vulnerability yet, and the related report is not publicly accessible. As a result, the technical details that would show how easy it is for attackers to exploit CVE-2026-58704 remain unknown pending installation of the patches on all devices.

Nevertheless, Google claims that there are signs of limited exploitation of CVE-2026-58704.

What we know about the other 109 vulnerabilities

Of the remaining 109 vulnerabilities found in Google Pixel devices, only one is rated moderate; the others are either high (62) or outright critical (46). Nine of these flaws fall into the RCE (remote code execution) category. This means that if an attacker successfully exploits one of these vulnerabilities, they can remotely force the device to run malicious code. The exact conditions for the attack depend on the specific vulnerability.

Another 88 vulnerabilities fall into the elevation of privilege (EoP) category. These let an attacker who’s already gained a certain level of access to the device expand their privileges. The CVE-2026-58704 vulnerability discussed above falls into this same category, which is why the September bulletin lists 89 EoP vulnerabilities in total.

Finally, 10 vulnerabilities can lead to information disclosure (ID), and two more to denial of service (DoS). In short, that’s a hefty list of flaws, so Google Pixel owners shouldn’t wait around to install the patches.

How to avoid becoming a victim

Google Pixel owners can install the update that fixes the vulnerabilities covered in this post by following this path: Settings → Security & privacy → System & updates → Security update → Install. Keep in mind that the phone will automatically restart to finish installing the update.

To keep your phone secure we recommend the following general measures:

• Install security updates on your phone regularly and promptly – whether it’s a Google Pixel, an Android smartphone from a different manufacturer, or even an iPhone.
• Avoid installing apps from questionable sources.
• Read reviews before installing apps from official stores, since malware isn’t uncommon there too. Users who have already been burned will often sound the alarm in the reviews long before store moderators get around to removing the dangerous app.
• Install a reliable security solution to keep you from downloading malware, and warn you about suspicious activity on your device.

Malicious extensions and ClickFix attacks are two hugely popular topics on our blog, and for a good reason: they’re both very common. In this post, we bring them together. Here’s the thing: in our posts about malicious ClickFix instructions, we don’t always explain exactly how users end up on the attackers’ pages in the first place. A recent study gives us a chance to fill that gap and talk about one of those methods: malicious extensions.

Readers who are not deep into cybersecurity may already have a bunch of questions at this point: how can extensions be malicious? where do they come from? and what exactly is ClickFix, anyway? Fret not: this post answers all these questions.

The danger of browser extensions

Let’s start with the basics. Browser extensions or add-ons are lightweight tools installed in your browser to give it extra capabilities or change how it works with web pages. For example, extensions can block ads, translate pages, download audio and video, save passwords, or take screenshots.

Most browser developers offer users an official extension store. For instance, for the most popular browser, Chrome, that store is the Chrome Web Store. There are also alternative platforms for distributing extensions, though browser developers have recently made it much harder to install and use extensions that don’t come from an official source.

Just like any other software, extensions can be useful, but they can also be malicious. In fact, cybercriminals often spread malicious extensions through those very same official stores, and we’ve covered plenty of such cases on our blog before.

It’s no accident that criminals love spreading malicious plug-ins. To work properly, most extensions need permission to read and modify the content of every web page the user visits. Without that permission, add-ons would be basically useless. For instance, a translation extension needs to read all the text on a page before it can swap the original for the translation.

Cybercriminals take advantage of these capabilities for their own purposes: for example, they intercept logins, passwords and other data entered on websites, swap out payment details, or show victims fake forms and messages. And all of this happens on legitimate sites that users have come to trust without a second thought.

Now let’s move on to a fresh piece of research about a campaign that spread 19 malicious add-ons through the Chrome and Edge extension stores. We’ll use it as an example to look at what these tools can actually do.

Almost twenty malicious extensions for Chrome and Edge

In late August, cybersecurity researchers reported finding 18 malicious extensions for Chrome and one for Edge. They said all 19 add-ons were probably linked to the same campaign. They base this on the similarity of the malicious code and the methods the attackers used. You’ll find the full list of malicious extensions at the end of this post.

Most of the extensions discovered, 14 in total, were built by the attackers themselves. Their first versions weren’t malicious at all and did exactly what users downloaded them for. But after a while, once users had come to trust the add-on, the attackers pushed an update that slipped in malicious functionality.

As for the remaining five extensions, their creators had nothing to do with the cybercriminals at all. They simply sold their creations to them. This way of getting hold of extensions is also popular among cybercrooks. There are plenty of reasons for that: ready-made add-ons can be bought for relatively little money, and criminals don’t have to build or promote them from scratch. And most importantly, along with the extension, they also inherit its existing user base. Upon buying the add-on, all the attackers need to do is add malicious functions and push an update that installs automatically for users. Users are never told that the extension’s real owner has changed.

In this case, the add-on cybercriminals bought most often was Enable Right Click & Copy — Smart Unlock + OCR. It had 70 000 users in Chrome and 10 000 in Edge. This purchase is exactly why there’s a single Edge extension among all its Chrome relatives. The add-on itself originally served a perfectly benign purpose: it let users select and copy text on sites where that’s normally blocked, and it could also pull text out of images with optical character recognition (OCR).

The malicious functionality introduced into the extension makes it reach out to the attackers’ command-and-control (C2) server to download additional modules of nefarious code. These modules can change over time. Since Chrome automatically updates all installed extensions by default, the malicious version lands on the device without users having to do anything at all.

For the downloaded code to run on the websites the user visits, the extension disables one of their defenses — Content Security Policy (CSP). This mechanism allows website owners to declare which scripts and other resources are allowed to load and run on a page. Once this protection is turned off, the extension can inject code it gets from the C2 server right into the pages open in the browser. The website itself isn’t hacked, and it looks the same to everyone else, but for that one infected user, the legitimate page quietly turns malicious.

What these 19 extensions can do

Now let’s take a closer look at what the malicious modules loaded by the extension are actually capable of. Researchers found 16 such modules, built for all sorts of tasks: from stealing data and hijacking cryptocurrency to the ClickFix attacks we’re focusing on here.

Some of the modules simply collect user data. They intercept logins, passwords, email addresses, and other valuable information the user enters into web forms, including payment details. On top of that, the add-ons steal data from Facebook and LinkedIn accounts and collect browsing history. Criminals can use this information to take over accounts, steal money, and launch further attacks against the victim.

A few other modules focus specifically on stealing cryptocurrency and related data directly. One of them is a crypto drainer, a tool that empties crypto wallets. It works with Ethereum and compatible blockchains as well as Solana and Tron. It replaces the real Connect Wallet and Swap buttons on websites with its own fake ones. When a user clicks one of these buttons, the drainer takes over all further interaction with the wallet and walks the victim through confirming the actions needed to steal their cryptocurrency.

Other modules target users of Ledger and Trezor hardware wallets. Right on the official websites of these services, the malicious extension displays a fake wallet update-and-restore page that asks for a seed phrase of 12, 18, or 24 words. The seed phrase the user enters is forwarded straight to the attackers, giving them full control over the wallet.

Finally, some modules gather information from crypto service pages open in the browser, such as OKX, MEXC, Kraken, KuCoin, Coinbase, Binance, Bybit, and MetaMask, including balance details and active session data that can be used to hijack accounts.

And now we’ve finally reached the module that matters most for this post: the one used for ClickFix attacks. We’ll talk about it in the next part.

How malicious extensions are used in ClickFix attacks

The ClickFix attack technique has become extremely popular among cybercriminals lately. It relies on social engineering: the victim is shown fake instructions supposedly needed to complete some action, such as passing a CAPTCHA check, fixing an error, or updating a program. Following these instructions, the user copies the command suggested by the attackers, pastes it into a system tool built for running these commands, and runs it, all by themselves.

We’ve written about attacks like this and their consequences more than once on our blog. But we rarely dig into exactly how a victim ends up on a page with fake instructions in the first place. A campaign that spread malicious extensions through the Chrome Web Store shows us one way this can happen.

Add-ons turn out to be a very handy tool for ClickFix attacks. As we mentioned earlier, when a user visits a page, extensions are allowed reading and changing its content in order to work. That gives attackers the chance to swap in a fake ClickFix instruction at just the right moment, replacing the content of the page the person actually wanted to open.

What’s more, the ClickFix technique itself lets attackers break out of the browser and gain a foothold directly in the system. That means removing the malicious extension won’t necessarily undo the damage: after the user has run the ClickFix command, malware may already be installed outside the browser.

In the specific attack example the researchers describe, the user sees a fake notification saying their browser needs to be updated, along with instructions on how to do it. The instructions change depending on the operating system, and the extension picks up that information automatically too.

How to avoid falling victim to infected extensions

First off, we recommend checking whether any of the following malicious extensions are already installed in your browser:

• Enable Right Click & Copy — Smart Unlock + OCR
• RapidLens – Google Lens for Screen Search & Images
• QuickLens – Search Screen with Google Lens
• Password Protect PDF
• Allow Copy – Select & Enable Right Click
• PixelCheck
• Creative Library – Ad Spy Tool
• Website Traffic Checker: MirrorSphere SEO Stats
• Site Signal – Website Traffic & SEO Checker
• SEO Pulse Pro – Website Traffic & SEO Analyzer
• Private Crypto News Reader
• Blockfolio: Address Monitor
• Crypto Rates & Fiat Converter
• Crypto Alerter: Price Alarms & Volatility Warnings
• DeFi Pulse Tracker
• Crypto Price Badge: Quick Glance
• Multi-Chain Explorer
• LedgerLook: Wallet Checker
• Meta & Facebook Ad Library Spy — Save Ads, Finder, Downloader | FeedX-Ray

If you find any of these extensions on your device, we recommend removing it as soon as you can and running a full system scan with a reliable antivirus. As we mentioned above, simply deleting the add-on might not be enough. You can use a free trial version to detect and remove the infection.

How to avoid falling victim to malicious extensions and ClickFix attacks in the future?

• Don’t install too many extensions and regularly check the list of those you have.
• Remove extensions you don’t use.
• Trust the warnings from your operating system and security software, rather than the instructions — or even the demands — of websites and apps.
• Install a trusted security solution on all your devices.

What else makes browser extensions and the ClickFix technique dangerous? Find out in our other posts:

• Bad advice for gamers: ClickFix hits Steam forums
• ClickFix on macOS: how Apple users are being scammed
• Infostealer has entered the chat
• AI sidebar spoofing: a new attack on AI browsers
• Dangerous browser extensions

Security researchers have found a way to hack a Boeing 737 with a device no bigger than a coin. The 737 is one of the most widely used airliners in the world, so chances are you’ve flown on one yourself at least once.

The attack requires installing a small device in a port that’s accessible through a hatch on the outside of the plane. According to the researchers, this port is regularly within reach not just of maintenance crews, but of other airport and airline staff too. And installing the device takes less than 60 seconds. So let’s talk about what this mysterious little device actually is, what it can do, and whether it’s still safe to fly on a Boeing 737.

Why hacking a plane is harder than hacking a car

Most of us have gotten used to the idea that our computers and phones can be hacked. It’s probably the most common topic on this blog. But we’ve also covered attacks on less common targets: cars, robot lawnmowers, automated card shufflers, bikes, and even mattresses. In today’s world, all of these (and many other) devices contain tiny (or not-so-tiny) computers.

Airplanes are no exception. A modern airliner is packed with computers — some of which handle critical functions: from calculating takeoff parameters to controlling the flight itself. But there’s one key difference: airliner manufacturers, unlike the makers of most smart home gadgets, take security very seriously, which makes it far harder to reach these systems from the outside.

Maybe that’s precisely why the idea of hacking a real plane has been tempting the most inquisitive security researchers for years. A team at the University of California San Diego and Oberlin College — the researchers who finally pulled it off — spent more than a decade wrestling with the problem. As mentioned above, the main challenge in hacking a plane is that its critical systems aren’t connected to the external internet. Because of that, studying plane-related attack vectors wasn’t seen as especially promising within the cybersecurity research community: reaching isolated systems remotely is extremely difficult, and the odds of an attacker gaining physical access were considered very low.

Two other successful projects changed that assumption for UC San Diego researchers Kirill Levchenko and Aaron Schulman: a hack of the Chevrolet Impala, and research into payment card skimmers. The car hack led their team to buy secondhand Boeing 737 computer components and build their own test rig. The skimmer research gave them the idea for a small physical device that could plug directly into the plane’s internal systems.

After studying the Boeing 737’s circuit diagrams, the researchers found a port accessible from outside the plane — protected only by an unlocked hatch. That port connects to a data channel called the ARINC 429 bus, which links the plane’s flight management computer (FMC) to its multifunction control and display unit (MCDU).

 A “bus driver” at the controls

On their test rig, the researchers checked what would happen if they connected to the ARINC 429 bus through this port and sent electrical signals more powerful than the ones the Boeing’s components normally exchange with one another. It turned out that doing so let them override legitimate commands with their own. From there, all that was left was building a device small enough to fit into the port they’d found.

Step by step, the team built a device compact enough to slot into the unprotected port. The finished version set them back less than US$100, and appears to have been built largely from off-the-shelf parts: a small microcontroller, electronics for communicating with the bus, and a Wi-Fi module. That last part could potentially help the device connect to the plane’s public in-flight Wi-Fi network, giving the attacker access over the internet, and eventually letting them control the device remotely. And the whole thing takes less than a minute to install into the port.

The researchers dubbed their attack “Bus Driver”, apparently a play on words: “bus” refers to both a passenger vehicle and the data channel that lets a system’s components talk to each other. The attack lets someone step into that channel and swap out the commands being sent — effectively controlling the bus.

What the improvised Boeing 737 hacking device can actually do

An unprotected port, a coin-sized device, access to the bus: that’s all and well and good, but what did the researchers actually manage to pull off? What kind of damage can this tiny implant do? As it turns out, quite a lot — potentially even fatal. By gaining the ability to tamper with the data flowing between the flight management computer and the control and display unit, the researchers found they could interfere with several critical aspects of how the plane operates.

First, the implant can alter the data used to calculate takeoff and landing parameters. For example, it can change the plane’s recorded zero-fuel weight, which throws off the calculation of the speeds needed for a safe takeoff.

The device can also manipulate the assumed temperature value pilots use to determine how much engine thrust is needed at takeoff. Feed the system the wrong numbers, and under certain conditions the plane could end up with insufficient thrust to take off safely — potentially even going off the end of the runway. Faulty calculations during landing carry similarly serious risks.

The implant can also change the route the autopilot is following. On a long flight, a deviation of just a few degrees — subtle enough to go unnoticed — could be enough to send the plane badly off course so it runs out of fuel somewhere over open ocean.

Beyond that, an attacker could use the device to steer the plane into the airspace of a country that isn’t part of its approved flight path. That kind of deviation can also have deadly consequences: the history of civil aviation has seen more than one case of a passenger plane being mistakenly shot down by the military after straying into restricted airspace.

Of course, the odds of a deviation like this slipping past both pilots and air traffic control are very low, but disasters tend to happen exactly when several human errors line up.

Finally, the device doesn’t just let someone change flight parameters, it lets them hide those changes from the pilots. For instance, an attacker could load a new route into the flight computer while simultaneously altering what’s shown on the MCDU display, so the pilots keep seeing the original route.

That said, the researchers note that in most cases an attentive crew would catch the discrepancy. The correct data still shows up on other cockpit displays, and switching to manual control lets pilots disengage the autopilot and take back control of the plane.

So, should we all switch to trains?

To wrap up, I’ll try to put the longtime aerophobes (and anyone this article has just turned into one) at ease. The researchers themselves say that despite everything they’ve learned, they still fly on Boeing 737s. And to avoid causing any real-world trouble, they deliberately left out exactly which port they used in their experiments.

The researchers also reached out to Boeing back in 2020 to share their findings. Boeing took the information seriously and worked on addressing the issue.

Specifically, the researchers suggested Boeing either remove the vulnerable port or seal it with epoxy resin to physically rule out the possibility of someone plugging in an unauthorized device. There are more involved options too, like redesigning the internal bus’s electrical protections so a rogue device can’t override the real signals, and adding systems that can detect this kind of attack in the first place.

Longer term, the researchers recommend that Boeing, along with other aircraft manufacturers, adopt cryptographic authentication for the messages passed between avionics components.

Whether Boeing acted on this specific advice or came up with its own fixes isn’t publicly known. When Wired reporters asked the company about it, the response was fairly vague:

“Our technical experts are confident that the layers of protection in place on the airplane, including within the system design and the operating environment, provide sufficient mitigation to significantly limit the feasibility and risk of real-world attacks.”

So no, there’s apparently no need to swear off Boeing 737 flights just yet. That said, I happen to have a lot of respect for trains, so I won’t try to talk you out of traveling by rail or using other ways of getting around either. I’ve actually written about train hacking on this blog before, though in that case the goal was constructive, not destructive.

Cars, lawnmowers, card shufflers, bikes, smart mattresses — it’s not even an exhaustive list of the devices that hackers have successfully tampered with. What else was hacked? Find out in our other posts:

• Botnets on wheels: the mass hacking of dashcams
• Car hacking via Bluetooth
• Five hacks that were (mostly) just for laughs
• Vulnerabilities in a toy robot permitting snooping. Seriously
• Ecovacs robot vacuums get hacked

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new family of Android malware, and it goes by the name of Manic. It lets criminals spy on their victims, steal banking credentials, and take remote control of infected devices.

But its most unusual trick is this: Manic can send stolen data back to attackers even when the given device has no internet connection. Apparently, random mobile internet outages seem to get in cybercriminals’ way just as much as anyone else’s, so the actors behind Manic came up with an unusual workaround.

People across a wide range of European countries are at risk, from Russia to the United Kingdom. In this post, we walk through what this Trojan can actually do, how it smuggles stolen data out to attackers, and how you can protect your Android device from Manic and other similar threats.

How Manic spreads, and who’s at risk

Researchers haven’t yet pinned down exactly how attackers are getting Manic onto people’s devices. Typically, malware like this spreads through channels like:

• Infected apps on legitimate app stores
• Malicious APK files shared on pirate websites
• Download links sent through messaging apps and email
• Scam sites

Google has told journalists it hasn’t found any trace of Manic spreading through apps on the Google Play Store. That suggests people are most likely installing infected apps from unofficial sources.

Experts have traced the beginnings of the attackers’ infrastructure for this campaign to February 2026. The earliest samples of the malware itself turned up in late May of this year. Since then, the criminals behind the Trojan have refined the ways it hides from detection on a victim’s device.

Manic currently combines the powers of a banking Trojan, spyware, and a remote-access tool that lets an attacker control the device. Attackers are especially interested in data from sources like:

• Banking apps and payment services
• Official government apps
• Crypto wallets and cryptocurrency exchanges
• Two-factor authentication apps
• Text messages and notifications: mainly the one-time codes used to verify logins or approve transactions

By looking at which banking apps Manic targets, researchers have been able to work out which countries it has in its sights. It turns out its reach is broad, covering Austria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.

Stolen passwords, intercepted codes, remote control: what Manic can actually do

Let’s look at exactly what information Manic steals, and how it manages to get it. The malware’s main trick relies on abusing Android’s Accessibility services, a set of built-in features designed to help users with visual impairments. Used as intended, these features are genuinely helpful for people with vision loss. But criminals have long been quietly exploiting the very same tools for their own purposes.

Once a user grants an app permission to use Accessibility services, that app can “see” the text and buttons on the screen, interact with them, scroll through pages, and carry out actions automatically — all as if a user were doing it themselves. Attackers use this to read messages on screen, quietly grant the malware extra permissions, interfere with attempts to uninstall it, switch off security protections, or control other apps without the victim ever noticing.

With Manic, this abuse of Accessibility services is paired with the Trojan’s own advanced capabilities. It can generate an invisible keyboard that overlays the phone’s real one. When a user types their password to log in to a banking app, Manic records exactly which keys they pressed. Then it uses Accessibility services to instantly replay that same keystroke on the actual app keyboard.

This means attackers don’t have to build a fake login screen for every single app they want to target. Because Manic works as an invisible layer sitting on top of the genuine app, everything looks and behaves as usual, so a phone owner has no reason to suspect they’re handing over their PIN or password to a criminal.

Manic doesn’t simply log everything a user types, either. It automatically recognizes what kind of information it has just captured and sorts it into categories: passwords, email logins, four-to-six-digit SMS codes, strings of characters that look like crypto wallet seed phrases, and phone unlock codes or pattern locks. Alongside the captured text itself, Manic also records which app it came from, when it was entered, whether the user typed it manually or used autofill, and whether that app is on its hit list.

Manic’s abilities don’t stop at collecting information. Using Accessibility services once again, it also lets attackers take remote control of an infected device. To conceal this activity, Manic can show a black screen or fake a system update.

On top of Accessibility services, the malware also asks for permission to read text messages and notifications. That lets attackers intercept two-factor authentication codes and one-time verification codes before a victim even has a chance to type them into the app.

Put together, this hands attackers not just passwords, banking credentials, and verification codes, but the ability to remotely control the victim’s phone as well.

Even being offline won’t save you from data theft

Manic’s original method for relaying stolen data off the device and back to the attackers deserves a separate mention. Even today, devices get knocked offline more often than people might expect, and Manic’s creators built a workaround specifically for such situations.

Normally, malware like this collects information on the device and sends it straight to a server controlled by the attackers. But what happens when the infected device has no direct internet access, or can’t reach the command-and-control server for some other reason?

In that case, Manic simply stores the stolen data on the device and starts scanning nearby for other infected phones it can reach over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. If it finds one with internet access, it hands over the encrypted data to that phone, which then forwards it on to the attackers’ server.

But it doesn’t stop there. Data can hop across a chain of infected devices. By default, Manic allows up to four of these relay devices in the chain. If no suitable device is nearby, the data simply stays on the original phone, and Manic tries again later.

How to protect your phone from Manic and other banking Trojans

Android malware keeps getting more sophisticated. That makes it worth remembering — and actually following — a few basic digital hygiene habits for Android phone and tablet users:

• Avoid installing apps from unofficial sources.
• Don’t grant apps permission to use Accessibility services unless this is absolutely necessary and you understand exactly why they need it.
• Install reliable security software on all your devices, run scans regularly, and take its warnings and recommendations seriously. We recommend Kaspersky for Android. Our Android security apps are temporarily unavailable on the Google Play Store, so to install them on an Android device we recommend using an alternative app store or installing the APK file manually from our website. A full step-by-step guide is available in our post, How to install or update Kaspersky apps for Android in 2026.

Malware doesn’t just target smartphones; it feels at home on other Android-powered devices too — from streaming boxes to… cars. Check out the details in our related posts:

• Botnet on the road: the first Trojan for car head units
• Qualcomm vulnerability: phone repairs and car maintenance are no longer safe
• Is your TV box renting out your network?
• Android Trojan posing as government services and Starlink apps
• The perfect storm of Android threats

Mac users have historically trusted their operating system to keep them safe. That peace of mind mostly comes from Apple’s strict control over its ecosystem, and the fact that macOS has historically faced fewer mass attacks than Windows. However, that doesn’t mean Macs are invulnerable: threats do exist, and new ones emerge all the time. Over just the past few weeks, security researchers have published reports on at least two new campaigns that target Apple devices.

The malware used in one of the campaigns has been dubbed CrashStealer, while the other is known as ClickLock. Both rely on different tricks to force users into entering their Mac password, which attackers then use to steal account credentials, crypto assets, documents, and much more. In today’s post, we take a close look at how CrashStealer operates — and how to avoid falling victim to it.

A videoconferencing app with CrashStealer inside

It was back in May 2026 that researchers spotted the first signs this malware was being developed, and by early July, they caught it operating in the wild. The malware earned its name because of its core mechanism: it disguises itself as the macOS built-in crash reporting tool (CrashReporter) while functioning as an infostealer designed to hijack sensitive data.

Researchers managed to trace one of the websites users visited to download the malware. The site poses as a legitimate platform for distributing the video conferencing tool Werkbit.

However, you can’t just visit the site and download the software. Before downloading, visitors are asked to enter a special meeting PIN. This setup likely allows the attackers to limit the distribution scope by targeting only specific, pre-selected victims. Exactly how the cybercriminals choose their targets and deliver the PIN remains unknown.

The “lucky” users with a code end up installing the initial malicious payload — named Werkbit Setup. Interestingly, it carries a valid Apple developer certificate and has successfully passed Apple’s notarization process — meaning it cleared the automated prescan for malicious code. As a result, the attackers manage to bypass the operating system’s built-in Gatekeeper defense. This allows the payload to launch without triggering the usual untrusted software warnings.

Once launched, Werkbit Setup first reaches out to GitHub. Researchers believe using this popular platform helps attackers blend in by making these initial network requests look far less suspicious to security tools. After retrieving instructions from a GitHub repository, the program connects directly to the attackers’ server to fetch CrashStealer itself.

The loader then saves the malware to a temporary macOS folder, launches it, and wipes most of the intermediate setup files. As a result, a fully functional infostealer is up and running within seconds of Werkbit Setup starting. By the way, the user never gets any videoconferencing app.

How CrashStealer works

Unlike the Werkbit Setup loader, the CrashStealer malware itself isn’t signed with an Apple developer certificate. To keep users from suspecting anything, the malware disguises itself as the built-in macOS crash reporting tool, CrashReporter, by using the exact same name, app identifier, and a similar icon.

Once launched, CrashStealer completes a sequence of steps to gain access to sensitive data, establish persistence in the system, and cover its tracks:

1. Remove metadata — including the attribute that flags the app as an internet download.
2. Display a fake system prompt asking for the user’s macOS password.
3. Use the previously captured credentials to gain access to Keychain, the built-in macOS password manager.
4. Check the computer for installed security tools and malware analysis software.
5. Collect saved browser passwords, cookies, Keychain contents, and data from other password managers and crypto wallets.
6. Encrypt the data it stole and prepare it for forwarding to the attackers’ server.
7. Create a copy of itself and establish persistence to launch automatically every time macOS boots.
8. Delete temporary files and other installation traces to make detection much harder.

Step two deserves a closer look. The password prompt that the user sees looks extremely convincing. What’s more, the malware immediately verifies whether the credentials are correct: if you make a typo and enter an invalid password, CrashStealer will pop the window right back up to ask you again.

What data is CrashStealer after?

CrashStealer’s hit list is massive. First and foremost, its operators target Keychain: the built-in macOS password manager where the system stores account credentials, cryptographic keys, certificates, tokens, and more.

Users of third-party password managers aren’t safe either: the malware steals data from 14 of these services, including 1Password, Bitwarden, LastPass, Dashlane, Keeper, KeePassXC, NordPass, Enpass, and RoboForm.

In addition, the malware collects all credentials and cookies stored in Chromium-based browsers — Chrome, Brave, Edge, Opera, Opera GX, Vivaldi, Chromium, and NAVER Whale — as well as Firefox. The attackers clearly have a strong interest in crypto assets: CrashStealer specifically targets data from 80 different crypto wallet extensions, including MetaMask, Phantom, Coinbase Wallet, Trust Wallet, Rabby, Exodus, Keplr, and Solflare.

Finally, the malware scans the Documents and Downloads folders to pick files that might be of interest to the cybercriminals. CrashStealer encrypts all the stolen data with the AES-256-GCM algorithm, ZIP’s it up, and sends it to the attackers’ server.

How to protect your device

The spike in attacks on macOS is a clear wake-up call: Apple users need to get proactive about their security. We recommend:

• Researching apps online before installing them
• Sticking to utilities from official app stores whenever possible
• Using a reliable security solution that blocks malicious websites and stops malware activity on your device
• Keeping all your credentials and banking details in a secure password manager. One option is Kaspersky Password Manager— which, notably, wasn’t listed among the apps targeted by CrashStealer

Kaspersky security solutions detect the malware described in this post and assigns to it the verdicts HEUR:Trojan-Downloader.OSX.Agent.gen and HEUR:Trojan-PSW.OSX.Agent.gen.

Leveraging legitimate software is one of cybercriminals’ tactics of choice, with remote management tools ranking among their top tools. A recent example involves the remote administration utility ScreenConnect. It’s designed for IT support teams to troubleshoot systems and configure software seamlessly in the background. However, when weaponized by threat actors, ScreenConnect becomes a versatile attack vehicle used to harvest data, deploy malware, and move laterally across corporate networks.

During a recent incident detected by Kaspersky Managed Detection and Response, our experts identified an attempt to use ScreenConnect in an attack. This allowed a detailed study of how attackers used this application in a large-scale malware distribution campaign. The following breakdown illustrates the mechanics of ScreenConnect-assisted attacks, and outlines key strategies to defend your organization against them.

How ScreenConnect reaches target computers

In the campaign analyzed by our experts, the attackers bundled ScreenConnect with legitimate free business software. They established a network of phishing websites to spoof popular tools, including OBS Studio, DS4Windows, DNS Jumper, Glary Utilities, Bandizip, Process Hacker, and others.

These rogue websites featured high-quality designs that could be taken for the official pages, making them highly convincing to unsuspecting users. Once the victim clicks the download button for the software, an archive is downloaded to their computer that contains additional files alongside the requested application:

• A legitimately signed Microsoft executable (exe), renamed to match the expected application installer (for example, OBS-Studio-Installer.exe)
• A malicious library named res.1033.dll
• An Assets directory containing installers for both ScreenConnect and the intended application

Launching the renamed file disguised as the app installer triggers DLL sideloading of a malicious library. This library silently runs the ScreenConnect installation without restarting the system, while using the standard Windows installer to set up the software the user originally tried to install.

The attackers used search engine optimization techniques to drive traffic to their fake websites. As a result, these malicious pages appeared at the top of search results for certain free software utilities on major search engines.

Our experts discovered over 90 domain names translated into more than 10 different languages. While most of these websites targeted English, Russian, and Chinese speakers, several domains catered to German, French, Spanish, Arabic, and other regional audiences.

A detailed analysis of the IP addresses and associated spoofed domains is available in our technical research article on Securelist, along with full indicators of compromise.

Why the attackers exploited ScreenConnect

In this campaign, attackers leveraged ScreenConnect to generate and execute malicious scripts on victim machines. These scripts served several key functions: they created exclusions for specific drives, directories, and processes within Windows Defender, disabled the User Account Control (UAC) security mechanism, and delivered and deployed AsyncRAT – a remote access Trojan.

To maintain persistence, the scripts configured a Windows scheduled task to run the malicious code at preset intervals. AsyncRAT then established a connection with the attackers’ command-and-control server to receive further instructions.

The primary objective of this campaign appears to be gaining unauthorized access to enterprise systems, likely to then resell it on cybercrime marketplaces.

How to secure corporate infrastructure

Although ScreenConnect in and of itself is a legitimate tool, its presence poses a security risk to corporate environments. Consequently, Kaspersky security solutions detect this application as not-a-virus:HEUR:RemoteAdmin.MSIL.ConnectWise.gen.

Security teams should implement the following controls:

• Enforce strict application control policies, including software allowlisting and restrictions on MSI package installations from unverified sources
• Monitor for newly installed remote management utilities and scheduled tasks
• Filter outbound network traffic from workstations to unknown IP addresses and domains

As noted previously, this campaign was originally detected through the Kaspersky Managed Detection and Response service, which can be employed to protect against such threats.

AI is getting better and better at solving CAPTCHAs. This makes website creators — who still need to verify that they’re dealing with humans rather than bots — come up with increasingly sophisticated proof-of-humanity checks. It seems an average user would no longer be surprised if asked to recite a poem — or, say, dance Gangnam Style — just to access certain websites. The latter could double as an age check, but I digress.

Attackers have learned to exploit this variety of sometimes bizarre checks to their advantage. In our blog, we’ve talked more than once about the ClickFix attack technique, which is all about slipping a malicious instruction to the victim under the guise of yet another CAPTCHA. Historically, this technique has been used to attack users of Windows-powered devices. However, researchers recently discovered a campaign that targets macOS users. In this post, we talk in more detail about the ClickFix attack technique, the new campaign aimed at Mac users, and the criminals’ goals.

What is the ClickFix attack technique?

Many common attacks and scams rely on social engineering, or more simply put — manipulation. Instead of looking for software vulnerabilities, attackers try to trick the user into doing the dirty work themselves: opening a malicious file, clicking a link to a fake website, sharing sensitive data, or running a harmful command.

The simplest example of social engineering is scam calls, where criminals pose as a boss, neighbor, bank security specialist, police officer… the list goes on almost indefinitely. And if you think that only, let’s say, not-so-smart users fall for these tricks, you’re wrong: social engineering has been used to hack the CIA chief’s email, hijack the X (Twitter) accounts of Elon Musk and Joe Biden, and steal half a billion dollars. In our post, They’re reading you like a book: scammers’ favorite tricks, we take a close look at their favorite techniques — give it a read so you don’t end up sharing company with those famous victims.

The ClickFix attack also relies on social engineering, except the scammers aren’t betting on the victim’s fear of an authority figure, but rather on their trust in technology and their habit of following instructions — even when they don’t quite make sense.

In a classic ClickFix scenario, a user visits a compromised or fake website and, instead of the expected page, sees a notification that there’s an issue. The site might claim that to continue, you need to complete an extra verification check, update your browser, or fix an error.

Next, the victim is prompted to follow a few simple steps that look harmless enough at first glance. Usually, this involves copying some text from the attackers’ website, opening the Run window, pasting the text there, and hitting Enter.

In reality, the text is a malicious command that downloads and runs malware on the device. Since the user carries out all the steps themselves, the operating system’s security mechanisms and built-in warnings are often dismissed as just another part of the instructions. In our blog, we’ve covered the typical pretexts used to trick victims into taking dangerous actions; you can read more about them here.

The ClickFix attack scheme quickly began spawning various spin-offs, such as FileFix and ConsentFix. Until recently, the victims of ClickFix and its variants were mostly Windows users, while Mac fans encountered it much more rarely. But lately, the number of ClickFix attacks targeting Apple device owners has been on the rise.

How does the ClickFix attack on macOS work?

The ClickFix attack on Macs, as documented by cybersecurity researchers, begins with the classic fake CAPTCHA scenario. To pass the proof-of-humanity check, attackers prompt the user to copy a command, open Terminal, and paste the text into it.

The more interesting part is what happens after the malicious command is run. First, it downloads a malicious DMG — the standard format for disk images containing installation files in macOS — from a remote server, and saves it to the /tmp temporary folder under a random name. Then the script mounts the disk image without showing it in Finder or creating a desktop icon — keeping it hidden from the user. After that, the script searches the disk image for an app or installation package, and automatically launches it once found.

One case documented in the researchers’ findings involved the widespread AMOS (Atomic macOS Stealer) infostealer being distributed this way. To gain extra privileges on the system, the stealer Trojan displays a fake macOS system authentication window tricking the user into willingly typing in their password.

What are the attackers’ goals?

After the malware is installed, the attackers steal literally everything they can get their hands on from the victim’s device. Atomic macOS Stealer extracts sensitive information stored in Chromium-based browsers (Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave, Opera, Arc, Vivaldi, CocCoc, and Yandex), as well as Firefox-based ones (LibreWolf, SeaMonkey, Tor Browser, Waterfox, and Zen Browser), such as the following:

• Cookies
• Saved logins and passwords
• Auto-fill data
• Saved credit and debit cards
• Browser profile data

On top of all that, the attackers also steal PDF, TXT, and RTF files from the victim’s device. The criminals are especially interested in crypto apps; specifically: desktop crypto wallets like Exodus, Electrum, Atomic Wallet, Wasabi Wallet, Bitcoin Core, Litecoin Core, DashCore, Guarda, Binance Wallet, Dogecoin Wallet, and Tonkeeper. The malware also gathers data from more than 200 cryptocurrency-related browser extensions.

But that’s still not everything…

It also targets the Telegram and Discord desktop apps. The malware doesn’t spare Apple’s ecosystem either — stealing Safari cookies, notes from Apple Notes, and passwords stored in the built-in Apple Keychain.

All of the collected information is added to a ZIP archive and uploaded to the attackers’ server. In addition, the malware replaces legitimate versions of hardware crypto wallet apps — specifically Ledger Wallet and Trezor Suite — with malicious fakes.

Together, this trove of data gives attackers broad opportunities to further compromise accounts, steal digital assets, and launch new attacks on behalf of the victim.

How do I avoid becoming a victim of ClickFix?

As social engineering attacks continue to grow, users need to be more vigilant than ever. That goes for everything from chatting with strangers on the phone or in messaging apps to everyday online activity.

• Never paste commands into your Terminal just because a website asks you to — whether it’s to pass a verification check, confirm your identity, or view hidden content. No legitimate website will ever ask you to enable its features by manually running commands Terminal.
• Never enter your macOS administrator password unless you completely understand what app is asking for it.
• Regularly install macOS security updates, or better yet, set them to install automatically by going to System Settings → General → Software Update and clicking the i icon next to Automatic Updates. While recent versions of macOS may warn you when you try to paste suspicious or malicious commands into Terminal, this isn’t a reliable feature. For example, the malicious code shown in the screenshot above didn’t trigger any warnings at all on macOS Tahoe 26.5.2.
• Trust the warnings from your operating system and security software rather than the instructions — or even the demands — of websites and apps.
• Install a reliable security suite for macOS. It’ll warn you and block malicious activity if you land on a suspicious website.
• Use secure password manager to keep your login credentials and crypto assets safe from cybercriminals.

Read our posts to learn about other threats facing Apple device owners:

• Crypto thieves ramping up attacks on Apple users
• The iPhone — invincible no more: a look at DarkSword and Coruna
• Predator vs. iPhone: the art of invisible surveillance
• AirBorne: Attacks on Apple devices through vulnerabilities in AirPlay
• SparkCat trojan stealer infiltrates App Store and Google Play, steals data from photos

Cybercriminals are increasingly moving away from complex malware, relying instead on social engineering that exploits a common user habit: mindlessly clicking through endless digital rituals like CAPTCHAs, cookie consents, and authentication prompts. This habit is often targeted by various kinds of the ClickFix technique, which threat actors have been actively using lately. Researchers recently discovered a new variant of this technique, which they dubbed ConsentFix. It allows attackers to gain unauthorized access to Microsoft 365 accounts via OAuth — a highly popular vector right now — thereby completely bypassing the need to steal passwords. For organizations, these attacks present a severe risk of compromised corporate email, exposed documents, and breached cloud resources.

How ConsentFix works

Social engineering lies at the core of all ClickFix variations. Attackers prompt the user to follow a seemingly harmless set of instructions, which actually lead to the compromise of their device or account. In the case of ConsentFix, these instructions are designed to trick the user into granting the attacker access to their Microsoft 365 account.

The attack begins by making the user believe they must authenticate with their Microsoft account to access a specific page or document. To do this, cybercriminals usually send an email containing a link to a website typically imitating a popular file-sharing service. Attempting to access a specific document on this site prompts the user for verification, which can be obtained by following this sequence of actions:

1. Clicking Verify with Microsoft.
2. Signing in to the work account, at which point the attackers warn that multi-factor authentication (MFA) may be required.
3. After being redirected to a new page, waiting until “localauth” appears in the address bar.
4. Dragging the information icon ⓘ from the browser’s address bar into a drop zone on the page.

In practice, following these instructions causes the user to drag an URL containing a session OAuth token directly onto the attacker’s page. This token is exactly what grants the attackers access to the victim’s email and other Microsoft 365 services.

The potential fallout of a Microsoft 365 session compromise

At first glance, it might seem like attackers only gain access to a mailbox. In reality, the consequences can be significantly more severe. The attacker’s specific capabilities depend on the organization’s Microsoft 365 license, the services deployed, and the privilege level of the compromised account.

Even basic corporate Microsoft 365 subscriptions typically grant access to Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, and SharePoint, while more advanced tiers may include additional services and administrative tools.

Even compromised corporate email alone is a major breach. The attacker not only gains access to email archives that may contain confidential business intelligence, but also can send phishing messages or launch internal BEC attacks on behalf of the user.

Beyond email, attackers are highly likely to gain access to the victim’s Microsoft Teams account, providing them with even deeper insights and broader leverage for various scams. Access to OneDrive and SharePoint is equally dangerous: it allows attackers to exfiltrate corporate documents, upload malware into cloud storage, tamper with existing files, and more. Ultimately, this creates a launchpad for moving laterally within the corporate infrastructure.

Publicly available attack blueprints

According to a Bleeping Computer article, the mechanics of ConsentFix are no secret. Attackers share detailed implementation guides on cybercrime forums, offering not only ready-to-use code but also video tutorials demonstrating how to deploy the attack. They also actively trade tips on how they harvest intelligence on organizations and their employees via LinkedIn and other OSINT channels to craft highly convincing phishing messages.

Collectively, this significantly lowers the barrier to entry for novice cybercriminals. As these guides and turnkey tools continue to proliferate, ConsentFix attacks will likely become increasingly common. Consequently, organizations should immediately factor this technique into both their defense strategies and employee awareness training programs.

How to secure your corporate infrastructure

The emergence of this new ClickFix variation demonstrates that simply blocking a specific keyboard shortcut or an isolated risky action on employee devices is not enough. Clearly, attackers quickly adapt to these measures. Therefore, to protect an organization from these types of attacks, we recommend the following:

• Be sure to deploy a robust security solution at the mail gateway level — this minimizes the likelihood of attackers successfully luring your employees to a page hosting the ConsentFix mechanism.
• Conduct regular cybersecurity awareness training for employees to keep them ahead of the latest social engineering tactics. Our training platform, Kaspersky Automated Security Awareness Platform, can assist with this initiative.

In early June, cybersecurity researchers discovered that a compromised version of the Israel-based Hola Browser for Windows (version 1.251.91.0) was secretly downloading a Monero crypto miner to users’ devices. Shortly after the discovery, Hola confirmed that it had fallen victim to a supply chain attack. In this article, we break down how the attack went down, how the crypto miner works, and what it means for affected users.

What is Hola Browser, and how was the malware discovered?

The Israeli company Hola is best known for its VPN service, which users primarily rely on to bypass geo-restrictions and access region-locked content. In addition to the VPN, the company develops Hola Browser — a Chromium-based browser that comes with built-in VPN and proxy features.

Researchers first spotted signs of trouble during a standard compliance check for the AppEsteem Windows Certified Application program. As part of this certification process, independent cybersecurity firms audit software to ensure it only contains the components it claims to have and is free of unwanted or malicious features. Even after a certificate is granted, apps are regularly re-evaluated to ensure they continue to meet AppEsteem’s strict guidelines.

It was during one of these routine follow-up checks that experts noticed an unauthorized file bundling itself with version 1.251.91.0 of Hola Browser for Windows. Once installed, the file saved itself to the hard drive at C:\Program Files\Hola\me{.}exe. The file immediately raised red flags for researchers due to a laundry list of suspicious characteristics: it wasn’t on the list of approved application files, lacked a timestamp, and had no digital signature. On top of that, its code was heavily obfuscated, and it possessed the ability to inject itself directly into system memory.

Interestingly, researchers noted that the file didn’t show up in every single installation. Because the infection wasn’t widespread across all users, experts suspected early on that a specific stage in the Hola Browser distribution pipeline had been compromised. Hola later confirmed this theory, admitting it had fallen victim to a supply chain attack.

As for the suspicious me{.}exe file itself, closer analysis revealed that it was a stealthy crypto miner configured to mine Monero. We’ll now dive into the technical details of how it works.

How did attackers use Hola Browser to mine Monero?

Crypto miners are programs that harness a computer’s processing power to mine cryptocurrency. While some users install this software intentionally to generate a bit of income, miners that run on a machine without the owner’s knowledge are typically classified as unwanted.

Running a hidden miner can noticeably slow down the device, spike the user’s electricity bill, and shorten the hardware’s lifespan. That being said, it’s worth noting that a crypto miner infection will not actually steal the owner’s cryptocurrency; the damage is strictly limited to the hijackers leeching your computer’s hardware resources to line their own pockets.

As we mentioned above, the malicious download bundled with Hola Browser sneaked a Monero crypto miner onto victims’ devices. Launched in 2014 and built on the CryptoNote protocol, Monero currently trades at around US$330 per coin.

Compared to heavyweights like Bitcoin or Ethereum, Monero is a bit exotic and lesser-known to the general public. This niche status shows in its relatively modest price growth and smaller market capitalization — which is roughly 200 times lower than Bitcoin’s. However, Monero has one defining feature: privacy. While Bitcoin and Ethereum operate on fully transparent, public blockchains, where anyone can trace transactions, Monero is a “privacy coin”. It uses advanced cryptographic mechanisms to mask the sender, receiver, and transaction amounts. This extreme anonymity is exactly why hackers love hidden Monero miners — it makes it difficult for law enforcement and cybersecurity professionals to follow the money trail.

Additionally, Monero’s underlying algorithm is explicitly designed to mine efficiently using standard computer processors (CPUs). This stands in stark contrast to many other popular cryptocurrencies, which require specialized ASIC hardware or high-end graphics cards (GPUs) to be profitable.

But let’s look closer at how this played out with Hola Browser. When researchers dissected the malicious me{.}exe code, they found it was automatically adding its own files to the Microsoft Defender exclusion list. By allowlisting itself, the malware successfully blinded Windows’ built-in antivirus, allowing the crypto miner to run in the background completely unhindered.

Once inside, the program made a copy of itself under the name HolaMonitorService{.}exe, and set up a persistent Windows background service called hola_monitor_svc. This maneuver allowed the malware to entrench itself in the system, automatically launching every time the computer restarted. To avoid raising any red flags with sudden massive performance drops, the miner was programmed to stay dormant, kicking into gear only when the computer was idle.

How to protect your device from crypto miners and malware

To their credit, Hola’s development team responded swiftly to the initial reports of the suspicious file. They confirmed the supply chain breach, but stated that the incident only impacted 0.1% of their user base. The company has since tightened up security around its update distribution pipeline to guarantee that users only receive approved, certified, and digitally-signed software components moving forward.

In light of this incident, we highly recommend that all Hola Browser users update to the latest version immediately — especially those running the application on Windows.

More broadly, this situation is a textbook reminder of why it’s so critical to keep all your software up to date and run a robust cybersecurity solution on all your gadgets. For instance, Kaspersky Premium provides real-time alerts about suspicious software behavior and blocks threats instantly. As an added bonus, a Kaspersky Premium subscription includes a secure and reliable VPN.

Don’t forget that malicious crypto miners don’t just target PCs; they also go after smartphones, often disguising themselves as anything from popular mobile games to official government service apps. Check out our previous posts to learn more:

• Android Trojan posing as government services and Starlink apps
• What happens if you download a cracked program?
• Miner inconvenience: how cybercriminals blackmail YouTubers into promoting malware
• Mario Forever, malware too: a free game with a miner and Trojans inside

Pavel Durov and his “private” messaging app have a brand new rival, and it’s — drumroll, please — Elon Musk and his XChat. On our blog, we’ve discussed more than once why Durov’s claims about Telegram privacy and security are exaggerated, to put it mildly. Here, I’ll just remind the reader that standard (non-secret) chats on Telegram aren’t protected by end-to-end encryption — the bare minimum required for user data to stay private.

But let’s get back to Musk. In late April 2026, the XChat app launched for iOS users. The tech mogul had been touting his messaging app for a long time, pitching it from day one as an incredibly private and secure way to communicate, and as a direct threat to Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, and iMessage. Today, we look at whether we should actually trust Musk’s promises this new service, break down its core features, and stack it up against the competition.

Bitcoin-style encryption

Musk initially teased XChat on June 1, 2025, naturally via his X (formerly Twitter) account. Responding to another user’s question about when to expect the new service, Musk wrote: “This week if there are no scaling issues.”

Apparently, scaling issues there were: the app’s beta didn’t drop until September 2025, and iOS users didn’t get full access until April 2026. As for Android, there is zero info on when that version would launch at the time of this writing. That said, an XChat page is already live on Google Play where users can queue up “pre-register”, whatever that means.

But let’s go back to Musk’s post announcing XChat. That specific post turned a lot of heads in the privacy and cybersecurity community, and here’s why: the tech mogul wrote that the service would be built on an “entirely new architecture”, written in Rust, and featuring “Bitcoin-style encryption”.

The expert community spent a long time scratching their heads and trying to figure out what Musk actually meant. After all, Bitcoin isn’t an anonymous, encrypted data exchange system. The blockchain does use public and private cryptographic keys, but for something entirely different: signing transactions. Meanwhile, these transactions aren’t hidden from prying eyes; they’re out in the open for anyone to see, forever. Simply put, Bitcoin protects its users not by ensuring privacy, but quite the opposite — through ultimate transparency.

Most likely, Musk used “Bitcoin-style encryption” as a marketing gimmick. Bitcoin was trading near all-time highs at the time of his announcement, and cryptocurrency was the talk of the town. Technically, the XChat beta that dropped in September 2025 protected user chats with a “kind of” end-to-end encryption, but this was implemented in a way that raised serious doubts among cryptography experts.

And not without a reason. Normally, setting up an end-to-end encrypted chat automatically generates a public and private key pair. The public key is used to encrypt messages, while the private key decrypts them. Because other users need your public key to start a secure chat with you, these keys are usually stored on the app’s servers.

The private key, however, should ideally live only on the user’s device — which is exactly how Signal does it. This serves as a simple, ironclad guarantee that neither the company itself nor any third party breaching its infrastructure can access user chats, even if they really want to.

But Elon Musk’s projects always march to the beat of their own drum: the XChat developers decided it would be a great idea to store users’ private keys on XChat servers. X claims they’ll use hardware security modules (HSMs) to store these private keys — specialized appliances designed to prevent even the system owner from easily accessing the data inside. However, experts are also questioning the reliability of this setup, and coming to a grim conclusion: if X really wants to get a user’s private key, they will most likely be able to do so.

How encrypted messaging in XChat works in practice

Finally, once the scaling issues were ironed out nearly a year after the announcement, X officially rolled out the XChat app for iOS in April 2026. Now anyone can use it, but from a practical standpoint, the situation with encrypted chats seems even more convoluted than in Telegram.

According to the social network’s help center, to use end-to-end chat encryption in XChat, both users must have an X account, set up XChat, and have some sort of connection between them:

• Follow, or be subscribed to each other
• Have exchanged messages before
• Have previously accepted a direct message request
• Be a member of the same Premium Business / Premium Organization subscription on X

If users don’t follow each other and haven’t interacted before, XChat might still let them send a message request. However, that initial request goes out without end-to-end encryption.

Again, this is how the process is described in the messaging app’s official help documentation. Sound overly complicated? Let me reassure you: in practice, it works — or rather, doesn’t — completely differently. I personally managed to send a message to another user who had NOT set up XChat. The app itself, of course, gave me absolutely no warning about this.

It gets even better. The user I messaged saw a notification for it on the web version of X, but couldn’t actually access the message. Here’s the catch: to start using XChat, the user first has to create a four-digit PIN. Yet, the app asks for this PIN the very first time the user tries to open it — meaning, before they even get a chance to create one. Along with this prompt, the user also sees a warning stating that without the PIN, they won’t be able to view past encrypted chats.

The only workaround I found to actually start using XChat is to tap “Forgot PIN?” — even though that PIN never existed in the first place — confirm your identity, and create a new (well, your first) PIN. Naturally, you lose access to your chat history this way, so you won’t be able to read any messages sent to you in XChat before you officially set up the app.

XChat: the new Telegram, WhatsApp, Signal… or Facebook Messenger?

All these PIN hurdles actually exist for a reason. Remember, unlike WhatsApp and Signal, the XChat developers decided to store users’ private keys on their own servers. Consequently, the app uses these four-digit PINs to encrypt those keys.

According to the XChat help documentation, this mechanism was designed to ensure a “seamless” multi-device experience. It’s impossible not to point out that both WhatsApp and Signal managed to pull this off without sketchy workarounds like PIN requirements or server-side private key storage.

The problem is, workarounds like these undermine any claims of app privacy and security. First and chief among them, a PIN isn’t exactly the most secure way to protect sensitive data. We’ve mentioned time and again that four-digit combinations are easy to crack via brute force — especially since XChat gives you a generous 20 attempts to guess the right code.

Stepping away from the bizarre implementation of end-to-end encryption compared to other messaging apps, it’s hard to ignore the overall sense of pointlessness that comes with trying to use XChat. As a Wired journalist rightly pointed out, the app feels less like a relative of WhatsApp, Signal, or Telegram, and much more like Facebook Messenger. Except people usually open Messenger to read a text from their mom or grandma, whereas XChat seems meant for anyone wanting to check in on that weird nephew who spends all his free time on X, still believes John McAfee’s promise of $500 000 Bitcoin, and fanboys over Elon Musk.

So, what’s the bottom line on XChat?

The best way to wrap up this post is with a quote from a cybersecurity expert: “If what you want is good security, use Signal. If what you want is to be able to talk to pretty much anybody using encrypted messages, use WhatsApp. If your whole life is based around X, I guess this is better than nothing.”

If you do use XChat, rule number one is to avoid a predictable PIN — absolutely don’t use your birth year or, worse, 1234. It’s also crucial not to forget this code, because if you do, your entire chat history is gone for good. Finally, just like your other passwords, you shouldn’t keep it in your notes app, but rather in a secure password manager. This won’t only save you from having to memorize dozens of character combinations, but will also reduce the risk of losing access to your vital data and conversations.

To learn more about secure messaging in other apps, check out our other posts:

• Messengers 101: safety and privacy advice
• What makes a messaging app secure?
• Messaging app privacy: 2025 rankings
• Chatting offline: an overview of mesh messaging apps
• WhatsApp and Telegram account hijacking: How to protect yourself against scams

Threat actors are already gearing up for this year’s biggest football (soccer) event, the World Cup 2026. With millions of fans looking for ways to stream matches online, many will turn to IPTV apps to watch live TV broadcasts over the internet. It’s no surprise, then, that cybersecurity researchers have discovered multiple campaigns over the past few months where malware was disguised as fake Android IPTV apps.

In this post, we discuss what IPTV apps are, how criminals use fake versions to spread malware, what this malware is capable of, and, most importantly, how to avoid becoming a victim.

What are IPTV apps?

IPTV stands for Internet Protocol Television. This technology delivers TV content over the internet instead of through cable, over-the-air antennas, or satellites. Naturally, the simplest and most common examples of IPTV are the official platforms of TV networks, which can include both websites and dedicated apps.

However, alongside official options, pirate IPTV services also exist. They usually lure users with free or dirt-cheap access to content that can otherwise be hard to find without expensive subscriptions — most notably broadcasts of various sporting events; football matches in particular.

As is typically the case with pirated content, these apps are blocked from official app stores, forcing users to download them from third-party sites. Consequently, the risk of using these services isn’t tied to IPTV technology itself, but rather to the fake apps and modified APK files distributed under the guise of well-known platforms — both official and pirated.

Massiv banking Trojan disguised as IPTV apps

For instance, in February researchers found the Massiv banking Trojan distributed under the guise of fake IPTV apps. Even then, experts noted that this wasn’t the only malware leveraging this tactic — several others were also spotted in the wild. The primary targets of these IPTV-mimicking malicious fakes have mostly been users in Portugal, Spain, France, and Türkiye.

In most cases, the discovered fake IPTV apps lacked the advertised functionality, so users didn’t get access to any content after installing the apps. Instead, the fake app would open the website of a legitimate IPTV service in a built-in browser to mimic normal functioning and avoid raising user suspicion.

Of course, the most interesting activity happened out of the user’s sight. These are some of the features the malware did have:

• Displaying fake windows on top of legitimate ones: fake forms for entering bank details or signing in to official services, as shown in the screenshot below.
• Activating a keylogger: recording and transmitting screen keyboard taps to the attackers.
• Hijacking control of the compromised device.

Perseus steals valuable information from users’ notes

In March, researchers reported on a new campaign where several fake IPTV apps were used to distribute an even more advanced and feature-rich malware strain: Perseus.

Research into Perseus shows that the malware is based on the source code of an Android banking Trojan called Cerberus, which leaked nearly six years ago. Perseus comes in two different versions: Turkish and English. The English-language version is more advanced and shows clear signs of AI-driven refinement.

Perseus abuses Accessibility Services, a set of Android features originally designed to make life easier for users with severe visual impairments. Fraudsters learned long ago how to leverage this tool to steal data from Android devices — a topic we’ve covered in detail across several of our posts.

By abusing Accessibility Services, Perseus gains remote control over the victim’s device. Here’s what it can do:

• Continuously capture and exfiltrate screenshots.
• Send a structured map of the device’s UI for remote manipulation.
• Mimic taps, swipes, text input, long presses, and other UI interactions.
• Turn on the screen, launch apps, and block them from running.
• Trigger a pitch-black screen overlay to hide its activities.
• Log keystrokes.

On top of that, the English-language version of Perseus boasts another notable feature. The malware can hunt for sensitive information like passwords, recovery phrases, and financial data across an entire range of note-taking apps: Google Keep, Xiaomi Notes, Samsung Notes, ColorNote, Evernote, Microsoft OneNote, and Simple Notes.

All of these capabilities help criminals drain football fans’ money not just from various banking services, but from cryptocurrency apps as well.

How not to let cybercrooks ruin your World Cup

The World Cup is just around the corner, and millions of fans worldwide will definitely want to tune in to this year’s premier football event. Past experience shows that cybercriminals frequently cash in on major spectacles like this. So, how can you watch the  matches safely?

• Don’t download apps from unofficial stores.
• Even when downloading an app from an official store — since malware occasionally slips through the cracks there, too— read the reviews carefully. Users who have been burned by fakes and malware often leave comments to warn others.
• Install a robust security app to keep all your devices safe from malware.
• Avoid storing passwords or other sensitive information in note-taking apps. To ensure your data and finances stay secure, use a reliable password manager. By the way, Kaspersky Password Manager includes an encrypted note-taking feature, allowing you to store your valuable information safely.

You can’t even watch TV safely anymore these days! Check out other threats facing TV lovers:

• Is your TV box renting out your network?
• The perfect storm of Android threats
• Are your TV, smartphone, and smart speakers eavesdropping on you?
• The hidden risks of cheap Android devices