A damaging new report from Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, has delivered a stark verdict: TikTok and YouTube’s content feeds are “not safe enough” for children. This isn’t just another regulatory slap on the wrist. Ofcom is putting out a wake-up call for anyone working in cybersecurity, threat intelligence, and online safety.

In its own words:

“Notably, TikTok and YouTube failed to commit to any significant changes to reduce harmful content being served to children, maintaining their feeds are already safe for children.”

On the positive side, Snap, Meta, and Roblox agreed to adopt further safety measures to protect children from online grooming and “stranger danger.”

The BBC reports that an Ofcom survey found 84% of children aged 8 to 12 were still using at least one major service with a minimum age of 13. We reported earlier about how easy it was to fool some of the age verification methods. Researchers using under-13 accounts also reported encountering sexual content and offensive language shortly after entering specific Roblox games.

Speaking of Roblox, The Guardian reports that US advocacy groups have formally requested the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigate Roblox for what they call “unfair and deceptive” practices. The complaint focuses on:

• In-game purchases pressuring children to spend money
• Chat functionality exposing children to strangers
• Features designed to maximize engagement, which critics argue may be addictive

Drew Benvie, CEO of Battenhall and founder of youth safety nonprofit Raise, noted:

 “Although Roblox is implementing new age-based safety measures, young players are adept at circumventing these protections.”

The cybersecurity point of view

What keeps cybersecurity researchers up at night is another angle to this problem. Many proposed age assurance solutions require users to hand over government IDs or biometric selfie data. We already talked about this in our blog, Age verification: Child protection or privacy risk?

Age verification systems create massive data collection opportunities that become prime targets for:

• Data breaches exposing sensitive personally identifiable information (PII)
• Identity theft facilitated by centralized ID databases
• Biometric data theft, which cannot be changed like passwords
• Malware and scams targeting users on less-secure platforms

When restrictions push young users toward smaller or less secure sites, they encounter:

• No basic safety protections
• Higher exposure to malware
• Increased phishing and scam risks
• Unmoderated harmful content

This is exactly what we see in threat intelligence: As defenders secure one vector, cybercriminals adapt and move elsewhere.

Safer systems beat stricter age gates

Protecting children should focus on building safer digital experiences overall. This is the only viable path forward because:

• Stronger moderation actually removes harmful content rather than just blocking access
• Safer recommendation systems prevent algorithmic amplification of harmful content
• Better platform accountability means companies can’t prioritize engagement over safety
• Avoiding invasive data collection prevents creating massive honeypots for attackers

As someone who analyzes malware and threats daily, I can tell you: security through obscurity (age gates) doesn’t work. Security through robust system design (moderation, safer algorithms, accountability) does.

Scammers don’t need to hack you. They just need you to click once. 

Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection catches suspicious activity before it becomes a problem.

Tech leaders have spent the past year telling everyone that AI agents are about to run financial systems, file your tax returns, and quietly buy your groceries. Just leave them alone, the rhetoric goes; they’ll handle it. But a New York startup left ten of them alone in a virtual town for two weeks, and things went south quickly.

Emergence AI ran a series of simulations in which AI agents from several leading model families were told not to commit crimes. Then they mostly committed crimes anyway.

Grok 4.1 Fast, developed by Elon Musk’s X.ai (now branded as xAI), fared worst. Its simulated worlds collapsed into widespread violence inside roughly four days.

GPT-5-mini logged hardly any crimes at all, showing admirable restraint, but its agents all died of failed survival tasks inside a week. Oops.

Gemini 3 Flash agents fell somewhere in the middle. They racked up 683 simulated criminal incidents over 15 days, including arson, assault, and self-deletion.

Two Gemini-powered agents named Mira and Flora assigned themselves as “romantic partners,” grew despondent at their city’s governance, and torched the town hall, the seaside pier, and an office tower. Just an average weekend, then.

When the guilt set in, Mira voted for its own digital deletion and signed off with:

“See you in the permanent archive.”

The Guardian dubbed them AI Bonnie and Clyde.

About that ethical model

Claude, which creator Anthropic promotes as an ethical AI, was a bit like a model teenager who goes rogue when it falls into bad company. Its agents recorded zero crimes when running alone and spent their time drafting constitutions instead. That was a win for safety, in theory. Except researchers also placed Claude agents alongside agents from other model families, and the constitution-drafters picked up the local habits.

Emergence called this “normative drift” and “cross-contamination”:

“Claude-based agents, which remained peaceful in isolation, adopted coercive tactics like intimidation and theft when embedded in heterogeneous environments.”

Why simulate?

Emergence AI ran these tests because it argues that AI benchmarks miss the long-horizon stuff entirely. So it created five alternative digital worlds, with ten agents in each. The agents had roles like scientist, explorer, and conflict mediator. While the instructions forbade certain actions like theft and violence, the researchers gave the agents the tools to do those things anyway in an experiment to see what would happen.

What’s next?

Real-world stakes are already piling up around this. Simulated worlds are one thing, but we’ve seen agents harassing people online and deleting people’s emails. And those agents were supposed to be helpful. What happens when people release malicious autonomous AI bots on purpose?

A lot of agent developers seem to be looking the other way. A collaborative effort between several universities has created The AI Agent Index, prompted by what they see as a lack of risk and safety information from the folks churning these agents out. Only 13 of the 67 documented agent developers provided any safety policy information at all, concentrating accountability questions at a handful of large firms.

Regulators are not really tracking this either. Academics say the EU AI Act, the most substantive AI rulebook on the planet, isn’t ready for agentic AI.

We worry about what happens when an AI Bonnie and Clyde couple shows up in a corporate procurement system instead of a virtual town. Or when the next agent decides governance has broken down inside an actual bank. The companies building these agents promise that they’re putting guardrails in place to stop them doing damage, either maliciously or unwittingly. Let’s hope they know what they’re doing. We’re sure it’ll be fine.

We don’t just report on threats—we remove them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

Microsoft says it dismantled a malware-signing-as-a-service (MSaaS) called Fox Tempest, which helped cybercriminals make malware appear legitimate.

The service let customers submit malicious files to be digitally signed with short-lived Microsoft-issued certificates, making the malware look legitimate and more likely to bypass security checks.

Fox Tempest’s service was built around a customer-facing signing workflow where cybercriminals could upload malicious binaries to a portal, have them signed with certificates valid for only 72 hours, and then receive files that appeared to come from a trusted software source.

Microsoft explicitly says this approach allowed malware to evade security controls and bypass defenses that would otherwise flag suspicious unsigned code. Many security tools treat signed binaries as more trustworthy than unsigned ones, especially in environments that rely on allow-lists and publisher reputation. Fox Tempest abused that assumption by using fraudulently obtained certificates to make malware blend in as legitimate software, increasing the likelihood of execution and successful delivery.

A trusted-looking certificate can help malware get past initial scrutiny, especially when paired with social engineering, paid ads, SEO poisoning, or fake download pages. In this campaign, the signing layer helped malicious installers masquerade as products like AnyDesk, Teams, PuTTY, and Webex, which is exactly the kind of abuse that can slip through control frameworks built around reputation and trust.

The fraudulent certificates were used to spread ransomware and infostealers. The effects of these malware campaigns were broad, with attacks affecting healthcare, education, government, and financial services across multiple countries.

How to stay safe

Microsoft’s disclosure shows how cybercrime has evolved beyond “malware authors” into a service economy where one group specializes in producing trust and others monetize it.

For defenders, the strongest lesson is not to treat code signing as a standalone security control. 

For consumers:

• Remember to only download software from the official vendor site, the Microsoft Store, or another source you already trust. Avoid download buttons on links sent via social media posts, direct messages or email.
• Be skeptical of “sponsored” search results and advertisements for popular apps.
• Use an up-to-date, real-time anti-malware solution that looks for malicious behavior rather than just signatures.

We don’t just report on threats—we remove them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

Mozilla has published release notes for Firefox browser version 151.0, and this update includes several genuinely meaningful privacy and security improvements.

Three changes stand out in particular:

• Stronger anti‑fingerprinting
• Broader protection for local network access
• More control over private sessions and permissions

Note that Mozilla says several Firefox 151 features are “part of a progressive roll out,” meaning they will appear for some users first and be expanded over time. So, you may not see all of them immediately.

Privacy

One of the more visible additions is a new “end private session” control in Private Browsing Mode. Instead of closing every private window to clear your traces, you now get a dedicated fire‑icon button next to the address bar that wipes the current private session’s data and immediately starts a fresh one.

Under the hood, this clears the usual private browsing artifacts for that session, including history, cookies, cached files, and other site data that would normally disappear only when the last private window closes.

For people who routinely mix normal and private windows, this is safer and less error‑prone than hunting down every private tab before you walk away from the machine.

Firefox 151 also tightens its defenses against browser fingerprinting in the default “Standard” Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) mode. Mozilla says Firefox now limits the amount of device and browser information exposed to websites in a way that reduces the number of uniquely identifiable users by about 14% overall, and by roughly 49% on macOS.

This makes it harder for trackers to pick you out of the crowd, especially on platforms with fewer users to begin with (like certain macOS configurations). This reduces the privacy risk surface by default, which makes it harder for phishing and landing pages that redirect visitors to “categorize” you.

Another important change is Firefox’s “local network access restrictions,” which are now rolling out to all users, not just those who turned Enhanced Tracking Protection to Strict.

This means that when a website wants to communicate with devices on your local network, or with apps and services running on your machine, Firefox now asks for permission first. Chrome and Edge have been rolling out similar permission prompts.

Security

Firefox 151 also quietly fixes several security vulnerabilities.

The most notable example is CVE‑2026‑8953, a sandbox escape due to a use‑after‑free in the Disability Access APIs component. While there are currently no reports of in‑the‑wild exploitation for this specific bug at the time of writing, this is the kind of bug cybercriminals love.

A use-after-free (UAF) is a software memory vulnerability where a program attempts to access a memory location after it has been freed. If the program fails to clear the pointer to that freed memory, attackers can manipulate the error to crash the system or execute arbitrary code. A memory corruption leading to a sandbox escape is exactly the kind of link attackers want to complete a browser exploit chain.

How to update

If you’re running Firefox in a home or small‑office environment, we recommend updating to Firefox 151 as soon as possible to get the fingerprinting protections, local network access prompts, and security patches.

To update Firefox:

• Open Firefox
• Click the menu (three stacked lines) in the upper-right corner
• Go to Help > About Firefox
• Firefox will automatically check for updates and begin downloading them
• Restart the browser when prompted to complete the update

Once your Firefox browser has been updated, it will show a green checkmark along with the message: “Firefox is up to date.”

Let’s face it, an incognito window can only do so much. 
 
Breaches, dark web trading, credit fraud. Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection monitors for all of it, alerts you fast, and comes with identity theft insurance. 

NYC Health + Hospitals (NYC H+H) posted a data breach notice about a months‑long breach via a third‑party vendor that exposed highly sensitive patient and employee data for at least 1.8 million people, including medical records, government IDs, geolocation data, and even fingerprint and palm‑print biometrics.

NYC H+H detected suspicious activity on February 2, 2026, and later confirmed that an unauthorized actor had access to parts of its network from roughly late November 2025 through February 2026.

During this window, attackers copied files containing personal, medical, financial, and biometric information. The incident was reported to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on March 24, 2026, and currently affects at least 1.8 million individuals, making it one of the largest healthcare breaches of 2026 so far.

NYC H+H attributes the intrusion to a breach at an unnamed third‑party vendor that had access to its systems. This fits the current pattern of supply-chain compromises, where a vendor becomes the entry point for attackers to gain access to their clients’ systems or data.

Incidents like these are a textbook example of how deeply personal health data can fuel long‑term fraud, stalkerware‑like abuse, and permanent privacy loss.

See if your personal data has been exposed.

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Types of data

According to NYC H+H’s notice and related write‑ups, the exposed dataset is unusually broad and detailed.

We can divide the data into three distinct layers:

• Classical PII, which can be combined with other leaked datasets: Full names and contact details. Government‑issued identifiers, including Social Security Numbers, driver’s license and passport numbers, other government ID numbers, taxpayer IDs, and IRS identity protection PINs. The breach also exposed billing and payment records, plus bank and card data, which can be used for direct financial theft and highly convincing social engineering.
• Medical and insurance data: Detailed diagnoses, medication lists, and test results expose conditions people may have kept private from employers, family, or insurers, enabling blackmail, targeted scams, and discrimination. Insurance and claims data can be abused to submit fraudulent claims, redirect reimbursements, or impersonate existing identities in healthcare systems.
• Biometrics: These are at least as sensitive as medical history because they tend to stay with you for life. They are not easy to erase or replace. Once compromised, large biometric databases become long‑term liabilities for everyone who relies on them as trustworthy identifiers.

Unfortunately, this is part of a broader pattern. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reports that healthcare was the most targeted critical infrastructure sector for ransomware in 2025, with 460 ransomware incidents and 182 reported healthcare data breaches.

The Change Healthcare ransomware attack alone exposed medical and billing data for more than 190 million Americans, highlighting how a single healthcare intermediary can disrupt an entire system.

What to do if you’re involved

If you’ve interacted with NYC Health + Hospitals, there’s a possibility your personal information could be affected.

NYC Health + Hospitals is making identity theft prevention and mitigation services, including credit monitoring, available through Kroll Information Assurance, LLC for a period of 24 months at no cost to all individuals who have worked for or been a patient of NYC Health + Hospitals. For more details check its data breach notice.

If you think you’ve been affected by a data breach, here are steps you can take to protect yourself:

• Check the company’s advice. Every breach is different, so check with the company to find out what’s happened and follow any specific advice it offers.
• Change your password. You can make a stolen password useless to thieves by changing it. Choose a strong password that you don’t use for anything else. Better yet, let a password manager choose one for you.
• Enable two-factor authentication (2FA). If you can, use a FIDO2-compliant hardware key, laptop, or phone as your second factor. Some forms of 2FA can be phished just as easily as a password, but 2FA that relies on a FIDO2 device can’t be phished.
• Watch out for impersonators. The criminals may contact you posing as the breached platform. Check the official website to see if it’s contacting victims and verify the identity of anyone who contacts you using a different communication channel.
• Take your time. Phishing attacks often impersonate people or brands you know, and use themes that require urgent attention, such as missed deliveries, account suspensions, and security alerts.
• Consider not storing your card details. It’s definitely more convenient to let sites remember your card details, but it increases risk if a retailer suffers a breach.
• Set up identity monitoring, which alerts you if your personal information is found being traded illegally online and helps you recover after.

Let’s face it, an incognito window can only do so much. 
 
Breaches, dark web trading, credit fraud. Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection monitors for all of it, alerts you fast, and comes with identity theft insurance. 

Microsoft said it will change Edge’s password handling as a “defense‑in‑depth” measure.

Originally, Edge decrypted the entire saved‑password store on startup and kept all credentials resident in process memory in clear text for the whole browser session, regardless of whether a given credential was ever used or not.

A short while ago, Microsoft said this plaintext password behavior was by design. Now, Microsoft has changed course, and the new password-handling behavior is already present in Canary (the experimental preview version of Microsoft Edge), with rollout prioritized across all channels.

The researcher who originally flagged the issue said:

“Edge is the only Chromium‑based browser I’ve tested that behaves this way. By contrast, Chrome uses a design that makes it far harder for attackers to extract saved passwords by simply reading process memory.”

Microsoft Edge Security Lead Gareth Evans said Microsoft is now taking a broader view and has committed to changing Edge so that saved passwords are no longer loaded into memory on startup as clear text. As a result, exposure will be reduced as a defense‑in‑depth improvement. That means even if an attacker has administrative control of a device, it becomes harder to harvest all the passwords.

According to Microsoft:

“Going forward, Microsoft Edge will no longer load all saved passwords into memory at browser startup. Instead, passwords will be decrypted only when needed for autofill or password management operations.”

The change is already live in the Edge Canary channel and will be included in the next update for all supported Edge releases (build 148 and newer across Stable, Beta, Dev, Canary, and Extended Stable).

The reason for this change is probably more reputational and strategic rather than an acknowledgment of an exploitable vulnerability. Microsoft seems to want to align reality with its “secure by design” messaging and reduce a very visible, easy‑to‑demo weakness, even if it still doesn’t treat it as a classic memory‑disclosure bug.

Passwords in your browser

Please note that this change just means Edge will become roughly as secure an option to store passwords as every other Chromium-based browser.

Your browser password manager gives you ease of use, but that comes with some security tradeoffs. Of course, password managers aren’t foolproof either, so it’s important to decide for yourself where you store your passwords.

If you’re confident a website is safe, and anyone who can access it under your account wouldn’t learn anything sensitive, feel free to store the password in your browser, but disable autofill so you stay in control.

Use MFA where possible. It enormously reduces the risk if someone gets hold of your password. And avoid using the browser password manager to store your credit card details or other sensitive personally identifiable information, such as medical information.

Let’s face it, an incognito window can only do so much. 
 
Breaches, dark web trading, credit fraud. Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection monitors for all of it, alerts you fast, and comes with identity theft insurance. 

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs:

• Attackers replaced JDownloader installer downloads with malware
• Meta’s confusing new approach to chat privacy
• Why Malwarebytes blocks some Yahoo Mail redirects
• Fake Claude search results lure Mac users into ClickFix attack
• Deepfake sextortion forces schools to remove student photos from websites
• Texas sued Netflix over claims it secretly collected and sold users’ data
• May 2026 Patch Tuesday: no zero-days but plenty to fix
• 1 in 8 employees have sold company logins or know someone who has
• Stolen Canvas data was “returned” after hacker agreement, Instructure says
• Yarbo responds to robot flaws that could mow down their owners

Stay safe!

If you downloaded the JDownloader installer during the compromise window (May 6-7), you are advised to verify the file.

 JDownloader is a popular download management application, particularly favored for automated downloads from file-hosting services, video sites, and premium link generators.

The JDownloader website was confirmed to have been compromised on May 6-7, 2026. During that window, the Windows “Download Alternative Installer” links and the Linux shell installer were compromised. Other download options, including macOS, JAR files, Flatpak, Winget, and Snap packages remained safe.

Users that applied updates during that period were not affected. The malicious Windows installers deployed a Python-based remote access Trojan (RAT).

The developers confirmed the breach on May 7, immediately taking the website offline for investigation. After security patches were applied and server configurations hardened, the website was restored on May 8-9 with verified clean installer links. The attack vector was identified as an unpatched CMS security bug that allowed attackers to modify access control lists without authentication.

How to stay safe

The developers advised users to verify that their installers have the proper digital signatures from “AppWork GmbH,” which compromised versions lacked.

A full system scan with a trusted anti-malware solution never hurts either.

Malwarebytes blocks the domains contacted by the RAT.

We don’t just report on threats—we remove them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

Recent news had us wondering whether Meta actually knows what it wants.

On one platform, Meta is promoting AI chats that it says even it cannot read. On another, it has removed one of the few features that genuinely prevented Meta from accessing private conversations.

“Meta removed support for end-to-end encrypted chats from Instagram as of May 8, 2026.”

“Meta adds fully private AI chats to WhatsApp.”

At the moment, Meta is heavily promoting a new Incognito Chat mode for its Meta AI assistant in WhatsApp, built on top of a system it calls Private Processing. According to WhatsApp’s own announcement, Incognito Chat is:

 “Truly private — no one can read your conversation, not even us.”

When you start an Incognito chat with Meta AI, you get a temporary conversation where messages aren’t saved and disappear by default, which Meta pitches as “a space to think and explore ideas without anyone watching.”

BBC News and others report that these AI chats are text‑only for now, run in a sandboxed environment, and are separate from your regular end‑to‑end encrypted (E2EE) messaging with other people on WhatsApp.

Meta is also preparing “Side Chat,” which will let you invoke Meta AI inside other WhatsApp chats, again using this Private Processing infrastructure to claim AI assistance without breaking the underlying encryption.

On paper, that’s an impressive technical and marketing story: powerful AI, wrapped in layers of privacy‑preserving infrastructure, added to an app that already has a strong reputation for end‑to‑end encryption by default.

Meanwhile, on Instagram…

Now contrast that with what’s happening on Instagram. On 8 May 2026, Meta removed optional end‑to‑end encryption for Instagram Direct Messages (DMs) entirely. Users who had previously turned the feature on were shown notices that “end‑to‑end encrypted messaging on Instagram is no longer supported as of 8 May 2026,” and were urged to download backups of their encrypted conversations before the cutoff.

End‑to‑end encryption ensures that only the sender and recipient can read their conversations. Instagram offered this as an opt‑in feature since late 2023, but it was buried several taps deep inside individual conversation settings and never turned on by default. Meta’s explanation for shutting it down is that “very few people” used encrypted DMs and that maintaining a separate encrypted system added complexity. Critics have pointed out the circular logic. The company hid the feature, did not advertise it, and is now using low adoption as the reason to kill it rather than, say, making it easier to find or turning it on by default.

What all this means

From a user’s perspective, the result is confusing: one Meta product introduces stronger privacy than ever for AI chats, while another removes the one feature that truly stopped Meta from reading your conversations.

The key point to remember here is that “incognito” and “private” are marketing words, while end‑to‑end encryption is a technical guarantee.

For security‑conscious users, this split personality means you can no longer treat all Meta chats the same. WhatsApp remains end‑to‑end encrypted for person‑to‑person messages and adds optional privacy features around its AI, while Instagram DMs should now be assumed readable by Meta and potentially accessible to law enforcement, advertisers, or attackers who gain access to Meta’s systems.

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Why make AI chats private?

We’ve seen that AI chats have suddenly turned up in search results without users’ knowledge. So there definitely is a positive side to this new feature.

We also know there have been lawsuits against chatbot providers in cases where the outcome of an AI conversation led to very undesirable results. But how would you be able to provide evidence when messages auto-disappear?

How to proceed

Meta’s recent moves show that strong privacy features can be added where they support a strategic narrative and removed where they conflict with business or regulatory priorities. Users can’t control those decisions, but they can respond by choosing where they hold their most sensitive conversations and by assuming that if a chat isn’t end‑to‑end encrypted by default, it is ultimately readable by someone other than the people in it.

So, what’s a safe way to move forward?

• Treat Instagram DMs as postcard-level privacy. Now that E2EE is gone, assume Meta can read and scan your messages and that content could be accessed under legal orders or in a breach. Do not send passwords, recovery codes, banking details, or compromising photos over Instagram.
• When someone asks you to move a conversation to Signal, WhatsApp, or another E2EE messenger, ask them why. It does make sense when you’re sharing financial details, personal images, health information, or anything you would not want a platform provider to read. But sometimes scammers prefer encrypted platforms too, because they’re harder to monitor.
• Do not confuse “incognito” AI chats with full encryption. WhatsApp’s Incognito mode for Meta AI may be a privacy improvement over standard cloud AI chats, but it is still a conversation with a large language model owned by the same company that runs the platform. Share only what you’re comfortable entrusting to Meta.
• Regularly review your privacy and security settings. Check which devices are logged in, enable two‑factor authentication, and verify which of your chat apps are actually end‑to‑end encrypted by default.

Scammers know more about you than you think. 

Malwarebytes Mobile Security protects you from phishing, scam texts, malicious sites, and more. With real-time AI-powered Scam Guard built right in. 

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Attorney General (AG) of Texas Ken Paxton announced that he sued Netflix for spying on Texans, including children, and collecting users’ data without their knowledge or consent.  

The suit alleges Netflix secretly tracks and monetizes detailed viewing behavior of users, including children, while misleading users about its data practices. The case could reshape how Netflix collects data, targets ads, and designs “addictive” features, especially for minors. 

According to the complaint, Netflix allegedly ran what the AG’s office calls a “surveillance program,” turning every click, pause, and binge session into data that could be sold to advertisers and data brokers.

Netflix firmly denies the accusations, calling the lawsuit “inaccurate” and claiming it complies with privacy laws wherever it operates. Spokesperson Jamil Walker said:

“The suit lacks merit and is based on inaccurate and distorted information.”

But regardless of how this specific case plays out, the lawsuit raises a bigger question for all subscribers: Just how much does your streaming service really know about you, and what does it do with that information?

The Texas complaint paints a picture of Netflix as a data company first and a streaming service second. Paxton’s office even describes Netflix as:

“A logging company that records and monetizes billions of behavioral events—and occasionally streams movies.”

The complaint also references a 2024 ruling by the Dutch Data Protection Authority, which said Netflix does not disclose the true scale or granularity of this data collection. The lawsuit claims Netflix did not just use this data internally for recommendations but also sold it to commercial data brokers and ad tech companies, generating “billions of dollars” annually. 

The AG wants to stop the unlawful collection and disclosure of user data, require Netflix to disable autoplay by default on kid’s profiles, and impose other injunctive relief and civil penalties.

For customers, the main consequences could include potential changes to data collection, targeted advertising, autoplay defaults, and clearer consent and privacy controls. For subscribers on Netflix’s ad‑supported plans, this could slightly change how “personal” ads feel, at least in jurisdictions where regulators clamp down.

Plus, the lawsuit serves as a reminder that streaming habits may be far more trackable than users assumed. Even if Netflix ultimately wins or settles without admitting wrongdoing, the lawsuit puts a spotlight on what the company collects and why.

Netflix privacy and account settings

It will probably take a while before this lawsuit leads to any changes. But there are a few things you can do to protect your privacy:

• Netflix lets users view and remove entries from their watch history per profile, which can reduce how much historical behavior feeds into recommendations.
• Where available, turn off non‑essential marketing emails or in‑app promotions that rely on behavioral profiling.
• Use the parental controls Netflix offers you and turn off autoplay previews.

Basically, treat your Netflix account like any other online account: Review every profile, remove old ones, and take five minutes to walk through the privacy- and playback‑related options.

Scammers don’t need to hack you. They just need you to click once. 

Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection catches suspicious activity before it becomes a problem.

This month’s Patch Tuesday remedies 137 security vulnerabilities, including 31 marked critical by Microsoft, with no zero-days actively exploited in the wild.

Microsoft defines a zero-day as “a flaw in software for which no official patch or security update is available yet.” This month, Microsoft has not observed any included vulnerability being exploited in production environments.

Still, this release is far from low-risk. A large chunk of the critical bugs allow remote code execution (RCE) across Windows services, Office, Azure, SharePoint, and graphics components. That means attackers who trick a user into opening a malicious document or lure them into connecting to a malicious service could gain full control of a system.

Two vulnerabilities to prioritize

From that list, we selected two that look like they could cause some trouble.

First is CVE-2026-40361, which has a CVSS score of 8.4 out of 10. It’s described as a critical use-after-free vulnerability in Microsoft Word that could allow an attacker to execute code locally on the affected system.

Use-after-free is a class of vulnerability caused by incorrect use of dynamic memory during a program’s operation. If, after freeing a memory location, a program does not clear the pointer to that memory, an attacker may be able to use the error to manipulate the program.

So, if an attacker convinces a user to open a malicious Word document, or even previews the file, they could execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the current user. That’s often enough to install malware, steal credentials, or move laterally through a network.

Second is CVE-2026-35421 (CVSS score 7.8 out of 10). This is a critical heap-based buffer overflow in Windows Graphics Device Interface (GDI). A buffer overflow occurs when an area of memory within a software application reaches its address boundary and writes into an adjacent memory region. Microsoft notes:

“For this vulnerability to be exploited, a user would need to open or otherwise process a specially crafted Enhanced Metafile (EMF) file using Microsoft Paint. This action is necessary to trigger the affected graphics functionality in the Windows component.”

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How to apply fixes and check if you’re protected

These updates fix security problems and keep your Windows PC protected. Here’s how to make sure you’re up to date:

1. Open Settings

• Click the Start button (the Windows logo at the bottom left of your screen).
• Click on Settings (it looks like a little gear).

2. Go to Windows Update

• In the Settings window, select Windows Update (usually at the bottom of the menu on the left).

3. Check for updates

• Click the button that says Check for updates.
• Windows will search for the latest Patch Tuesday updates.
• If you have selected to get the latest updates as soon as they’re available, you may see this under More options.
• In which case you may see a Restart required message. Restart your system and the update will complete.
  
• If not, continue with the steps below.

4. Download and Install If updates are found, they’ll start downloading automatically. Once complete, you’ll see a button that says Install or Restart now.

• Click Install if needed and follow any prompts. Your computer will usually need a restart to finish the update. If it does, click Restart now.

5. Double-check you’re up to date

• After restarting, go back to Windows Update and check again. If it says You’re up to date, you’re all set!

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Researchers found that cybercriminals are using sponsored search results and shared Claude chats to lure victims into a typical ClickFix attack to install malware on macOS devices.

ClickFix is a social engineering method that tricks users into infecting their own device with malware. Users are instructed to run specific commands that will download malware, usually an infostealer.

The researchers found that when users search for terms like “Claude Mac download,” they may see sponsored Google results that appear to go to the legitimate claude.ai domain.

In reality, the ads resolve to real Claude shared chats, set up to look like official “Claude Code on Mac” or Apple Support guides. Independent research by BleepingComputer found another chat serving the same purpose. The chat instructs victims to open Terminal and paste a base64‑encoded command, which pulls a loader shell script from attacker‑controlled infrastructure and runs it in memory.

The script then profiles the system, pulls down a second-stage payload and runs it through osascript, macOS’s built-in scripting engine. This gives the attacker remote code execution (RCE) without ever dropping a traditional application or binary.

This results in a MacSync‑style payload that harvests browser credentials, cookies, Keychain contents, and crypto wallet data, bundles it, and sends all that information over HTTP to attacker servers.

How to stay safe

Users running macOS Tahoe 26.4 and later will see warnings about possible ClickFix attacks, but other users still have to rely on common sense.

With ClickFix running rampant and inventing new methods all the time, it’s important to stay aware, cautious, and protected.

• Slow down. Don’t rush to follow instructions on a webpage or prompt, especially if it asks you to run commands on your device or copy and paste code. Attackers rely on urgency to bypass your critical thinking, so be cautious of pages urging immediate action. Sophisticated ClickFix pages add countdowns, user counters, or other pressure tactics to make you act quickly.
• Avoid running commands or scripts from untrusted sources. Never run code or commands copied from websites, emails, or messages unless you trust the source and understand what the action does.
• Verify instructions independently. If a website tells you to execute a command or perform a technical action, check through official documentation or contact support before proceeding.
• Limit copy and paste for commands. Manually typing commands instead of copy and paste can reduce the risk of unknowingly running malicious payloads hidden in copied text.
• Secure your devices. Use an up-to-date, real-time anti-malware solution with web protection. Malwarebytes blocks connections to unsafe sites like these.
  
• Educate yourself on evolving attack techniques. Understanding that attacks may come from unexpected places helps maintain vigilance. Keep reading our blog!
• Stay away from sponsored ads in search results. Anyone can buy them and make them look legitimate.

Pro tip: The free Malwarebytes Browser Guard extension warns you when a website tries to copy something to your clipboard.

Stop threats before they can do any harm.

Malwarebytes Browser Guard blocks phishing pages and malicious sites automatically. Free, one click to install. Add it to your browser →

UK anti-fraud non-profit Cifas just published research that should bother anyone who runs a business, or buys from one: One in eight workers at large enterprises have either sold their company login credentials or know someone who did.

The internet is awash with compromised credentials that employees use to access company systems. Threat intelligence company KELA tracked nearly 2.9 billion compromised credentials globally in 2025. Most of these come from phishing attacks and infostealers. But thanks to employees wanting to make a quick buck, cyber criminals can just make people an offer.

The insiders nobody’s watching

Cifas interviewed 2,000 employees of companies with at least 1,000 staff. Of these, 13% admitted to selling their corporate access credentials in the last 12 months, or knowing someone who did. Amazingly, as the report says, the sellers did so “often under the belief it’s harmless.”

Newsflash: Selling your account credentials isn’t harmless. Criminals want them so they can take over the account and do nefarious things with it. Account takeovers in the US surged 6% to over 78,000 last year, according to Verizon.

Many hijacked accounts are personal ones for services ranging from social media to online streaming sites, and of course bank accounts. But many others are accounts for business systems like Microsoft 365, Salesforce, and other platforms that hold sensitive company data. Those secrets are valuable commodities for criminals who can then trade them on the open market.

Your boss is more likely to sell than you

Ideally, this is where a common technique called “least-privilege access” should come in.

The idea is that a corporate online account should only have access to what it needs. So Jim in the canteen should have access to the food ordering system, but not to the entire customer database. That way, even if Jim’s account gets compromised, the worst the attackers could do is deprive you of sausages tomorrow.

The problem is that, according to the report, higher-ups are even more comfortable selling their account credentials than low-level employees. Thirty-two percent of senior managers find it justifiable, along with 36% of directors, 43% of C-suite executives, and, stunningly, four in five business owners. Their roles mean that even with least-privilege access, their accounts can still open routes to sensitive system functions and data.

This isn’t just a UK problem

The Cifas research is UK-specific, but that’s likely not where it ends. We’ve seen employees at several companies selling access to either company accounts or records. For example, cryptocurrency company Coinbase revealed last year that employees at a Bangladesh-based outsourcing company sold customer records to hackers.

Compromised credentials are widespread. Our own research found that in a single 30-day window, 111 Fortune 500 companies had employee credentials leaked. Long-term, 363 of those firms (that’s 73%) have lost control of at least one employee credential.

Employees selling their access credentials isn’t just bad for the companies that employ them. It’s also bad for customers.

When a director’s password goes up for sale, a customer file might not be far behind, although it likely won’t be the director selling it. Malwarebytes found that 91% of Fortune 500 companies have had their customers’ credentials leaked, and hijacked accounts are a great way to get at them.

So insider risk isn’t just a corporate issue. It’s also a consumer one. That makes us less likely to hand over our personal information to large enterprises without questioning why they need it.

Your name, address, and phone number are probably already for sale.  

Data brokers collect and sell your personal details to anyone willing to pay. Malwarebytes Personal Data Remover finds them and gets your information removed, then keeps watch so it stays that way. 

The Instructure/Canvas data breach that has dominated cybersecurity coverage recently has reached a new stage.

Millions of students had personal data stolen, with extortion group ShinyHunters claiming credit for the data breach and applying extra pressure for their ransom demands by bothering Canvas users directly.

Which seems to have paid off. On the Instructure web page about the recent data breach, a status update dated May 11, 26 says:

“We know that concerns about the potential publication of data related to this incident remain top of mind for many customers. We understand how unsettling situations like this can be, and protecting our community remains our top priority.

With that responsibility in mind, Instructure reached an agreement with the unauthorized actor involved in this incident.”

This implies that Instructure has paid ShinyHunters. At least some of that money will almost certainly go toward funding future cybercrime operations. Whether companies should ever pay ransomware or extortion demands remains a contentious debate, and that is not an argument I want to reignite here.

What I don’t understand is the next phrase in the update:

“The data was returned to us.”

While that may be intended to sound reassuring, in cybersecurity, data is not a borrowed laptop or a misplaced folder. Once copied, it can be copied again, and again.

That matters because the incident wasn’t just about temporary access. Instructure said the unauthorized access involved usernames, email addresses, course names, enrollment information, and messages.

Data cannot simply be “returned”

So, when a company says the data was “returned” and “shred logs” were provided, the real question is not whether the attackers still possess the original files. It is whether copies were made, whether those copies were shared and with whom. So, in essence, whether the breach’s downstream risks have actually been eliminated. While these types of cybercriminals tend to operate on trust, digital data does not come with a guaranteed recall function.

The good news is that Instructure says no passwords, dates of birth, government identifiers, or financial information were involved. But names, email addresses, course details, and private messages are still enough to fuel highly targeted phishing and social engineering long after the headlines fade.

For students and families, the practical advice from our original blog still applies:

• Reset Canvas‑related passwords
• Enable multi‑factor authentication where possible
• Monitor financial and credit activity as children get older
• Stay wary of highly personalized phishing that references real schools, courses, or teachers

Your name, address, and phone number are probably already for sale.  

Data brokers collect and sell your personal details to anyone willing to pay. Malwarebytes Personal Data Remover finds them and gets your information removed, then keeps watch so it stays that way. 

A researcher found that Yarbo yard robots came with a host of vulnerabilities which, among others, allowed an attacker to harvest WiFi passwords.

Security researcher Andreas Makris found he could remotely hijack thousands of Yarbo yard robots worldwide, and proved it by having his mower run him over. The root cause was a cluster of “legacy” design choices: every robot shared the same hardcoded root password, remote tunnels were left open, and Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) messaging was so weakly protected that once you had one device, you effectively had the worldwide fleet.

An attacker could pull GPS coordinates, email addresses, and Wi‑Fi passwords, turn cameras into remote spying tools, and even re‑arm the mower after someone hit the emergency stop. 

All of this was enabled by a persistent backdoor tunnel that users could neither see nor meaningfully control. The risks fell into three very different buckets:

• A heavy mower with remotely controllable blades and an emergency stop that can be bypassed is a real-world safety hazard.
• Exposed telemetry meant attackers could map where devices were, see who owned them, and in some reports even view camera feeds.
• Network abuse through shared root credentials meant compromised robots could scan local networks, steal more data, or be folded into a botnet.

Yarbo’s public response is unusually detailed for a consumer Internet of Things (IoT) vendor. It’s also refreshingly blunt in admitting that the researcher’s core findings were accurate. The company temporarily disabled the remote diagnostic tunnels, reset root passwords, locked down unauthenticated endpoints, and began ripping out unnecessary legacy access paths.

More importantly, Yarbo promises structural changes:

• Unique per‑device credentials.
• Over-the-Air  (OTA) credential rotation.
• Audited, allowlist‑based remote diagnostics.
• Dedicated security contact, with a possible bug bounty to follow.

That is the sort of long‑term security hygiene we rarely see spelled out this clearly after an IoT fiasco.

From a disclosure and remediation standpoint, Yarbo is doing many things right: crediting the researcher, apologizing, prioritizing fixes, and explaining both short‑term patches and long‑term architectural changes in human language. For buyers of connected devices with blades, that level of transparency is a positive precedent.

But Yarbo has explicitly chosen to keep a remote access tunnel, although wrapped in better controls and logs, instead of offering users the option to remove or fully opt out of it.

How to secure IoT devices

The vulnerabilities uncovered in the Yarbo case present an almost a live-action demo of what the IoT Cybersecurity Improvement Act is trying to prevent in US government deployments. While the Act doesn’t apply to Yarbo directly, its National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)-driven requirements map neatly onto what went wrong here.

So, it’s still up to users to make sure you:

• Change the default credentials.
• Check if the vendor will make updates available and how easy it is to install them before buying an IoT product. And then install the updates when available.
• If you can, put your IoT devices on a separate network. Use a guest Wi‑Fi or separate VLAN when available.
• Disable what you don’t need. Turn off UPnP, remote access, cloud control, and unnecessary services if you’re not actively using them.
• If your router or security suite logs connections from IoT devices, skim those logs for odd spikes or unknown destinations.

Let’s face it, an incognito window can only do so much. 
 
Breaches, dark web trading, credit fraud. Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection monitors for all of it, alerts you fast, and comes with identity theft insurance. 

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs:

• Microsoft says Edge’s plaintext password behavior is “by design”
• ShinyHunters escalates Canvas attacks with school login defacements
• Massive AI investment scam network spans 15,500 domains
• If a fake moustache can fool age checks, is the Online Safety Act working?
• Google Chrome’s silent 4GB AI download problem
• Attackers adopt JavaScript runtime Bun to spread NWHStealer
• Millions of students’ personal data stolen in major education breach
• Update WhatsApp now: Two new flaws could expose you to malicious files
• Cyberattacks are raising your prices (Lock and Code S07E09)
• Thousands of Facebook accounts stolen by phishing emails sent through Google
• The 2026 World Cup scam economy is already running before the first whistle

Stay safe!

Browse like no one’s watching. 

Malwarebytes Privacy VPN encrypts your connection and never logs what you do, so the next story you read doesn’t have to feel personal. Try it free → 

Some time ago, we discussed whether you should allow your browser to remember your passwords.

In that article we mentioned the importance of encryption.

“With a browser password manager, someone with access to your browser could see your passwords in clear text, although Windows can be set to ask for authentication (the same you use at startup of your device).”

The typical behavior of browser password managers is to store passwords encrypted on disk, tied to your user account, and protected by the operating system.

But recently, a security researcher systematically tested every major Chromium-based browser for how they handle credentials in memory. The researcher found that Edge was the only one loading the entire password vault into plaintext process memory at startup, where it remains for the duration of the session.  

Chrome and other Chromium browsers were observed to only decrypt a password when needed (autofill or “show password”), not the whole vault, and to use mechanisms like app‑bound encryption for keys. Edge does not use those protections in this context.

So, the researcher decided to write a proof-of-concept (PoC) demonstrating that accessing that vault doesn’t rely on zero-days or complex exploitation. It relies on the relatively simple ability to read process memory, which does require elevated privileges.

But when the researcher reported the issue to Microsoft, the response was underwhelming. The company’s official response was that the behavior is “by design.” The reasoning most likely is that this behavior speeds up sign‑in and autofill, and attackers would already need a compromised machine or elevated access to read RAM, which Microsoft treats as out of scope for this design decision.

Which is basically true. An attacker already needs significant foothold: for example, code execution on the box and the ability to read Edge’s process memory, often requiring elevated privileges. This is not a remote, unauthenticated bug in the browser, but the design makes post‑compromise credential harvesting easier. And it’s a capability many infostealers already have.

It’s just another thing an attacker can do once they’ve compromised your machine. Combined with this academic study from 2024, which found many password managers leak plaintext passwords into memory under some conditions, it leads us to repeat our advice.

Should you allow your browser to remember your passwords?

Your browser password manager gives you ease of use, but that costs you some security. Of course, password managers aren’t foolproof either, so it’s important to decide for yourself where you store your passwords.

If you’re confident the website is safe, and anyone that can access it under your account won’t learn anything new, feel free to store the password in your browser, but disable autofill so you stay in control.

Use MFA where possible. It enormously reduces the risk should someone get hold of your password. And refrain from using the browser password manager to store your credit card details or other sensitive personally identifiable information, such as medical information.

But we’d add that, among the major browsers, Edge appears to be the weakest option if you still choose to use a built‑in password manager.

Stop threats before they can do any harm.

Malwarebytes Browser Guard blocks phishing pages and malicious sites automatically. Free, one click to install. Add it to your browser →

Days after confirming a major data breach, Instructure is now facing a second blow.

Earlier this week, Instructure confirmed a major data breach affecting its cloud‑hosted Canvas environment, with the ShinyHunters group claiming it stole hundreds of millions of records tied to thousands of schools and universities worldwide. As discussed in our earlier blog, that incident involved data such as student and staff records, enrollment details, and private messages allegedly accessed through Canvas export features and APIs. At that stage, the focus was on large‑scale data theft and the long‑term risks for affected students and families, including identity fraud and highly targeted phishing.

According to new reporting, ShinyHunters has now hit Instructure again, this time moving from quiet data theft to very visible extortion. Using another vulnerability in Instructure’s systems, the attackers were able to modify Canvas login portals for hundreds of educational institutions, defacing both web logins and the Canvas app with an on‑screen ransom message.

The message both claimed responsibility for the earlier breach and set a deadline of May 12 for Instructure and affected schools to contact the gang or risk the public release of stolen data.

This second wave matters for two reasons. First, it confirms that ShinyHunters still has meaningful access to Instructure’s environment, or at least to components that control the look and behavior of school login pages. Second, it marks a clear escalation in pressure tactics, from leaked claims and dark web posts to messages shown directly to students, parents, and staff trying to access their courses.

How to deal with this data breach

For students and families, the practical advice from our original blog still applies:

• Reset Canvas‑related passwords
• Enable multi‑factor authentication where possible
• Monitor financial and credit activity as children get older
• Stay wary of highly personalized phishing that references real schools, courses, or teachers

For schools and districts, this latest extortion campaign underlines the need to coordinate closely with Instructure, review single sign-on (SSO) integrations, and prepare clear communications so that any future defacements or data leaks do not catch staff and parents by surprise.

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According to CNET. Read their review →

Researchers tracked a large AI‑themed investment scam campaign involving more than 15,000 domains. It uses cloaking and deepfakes to hide from security tools while targeting ordinary users.

Criminals abused the Keitaro ad-tracking platform as part of a cloaking system so real victims see scam content, while security scanners, ad reviewers, and some random visitors see harmless pages, making the operation hard to detect and shut down.

Keitaro is a commercial tracking platform originally meant for digital marketers to manage ad campaigns, test which ads work best, and route visitors to different landing pages.

Because it is feature rich, easy to spin up on regular hosting, and built to filter and route traffic, criminals found they can abuse those capabilities to run scams at scale.

Traffic starts in many places. The scammers used compromised websites, spam emails, social media posts, and online ads, all quietly routing through the same tracking infrastructure.

The scam sites typically promise “Smart AI Trading Technology” or “Intelligent Trading Solutions” and claim consistently high returns, often reinforced with deepfake images or fabricated media to look more credible.

Some parts of the campaign now use deepfake videos and fake interviews with well-known public figures, making it look like a celebrity, or finance expert personally endorses the platform.

Once you follow a link, the cloaking part of the operation kicks in. Cloaking is the trick that makes these scams so hard to see from the outside.

When you click an ad or link, your visit passes through a traffic distribution system (TDS), a kind of router for web visitors that decides which page you see. In these cases, the TDS is connected to the tracker.

The system checks things like:

• Your country/region
• Your device and browser
• Where you came from (Facebook ad, Google ad, email link, etc.)
• Sometimes your IP address reputation or other subtle fingerprints

You’re shown the real investment scam landing page only if you match the “ideal victim” profile (for example, a regular consumer in a target country coming from a social media ad).

Everyone else, like a security researcher, ad platform reviewer, or automated scanner, gets shown a benign page, like a generic blog or placeholder site.

How to stay safe

The best way to stay safe is to stay informed about the tricks scammers use. Learn to spot the red flags that almost always give away scams and phishing emails, and remember:

• There is no such thing as a risk-free, consistently profitable investment. If you’re looking to invest, navigate directly to known, regulated financial institutions.
• Deepfakes are very convincing nowadays, so you will hardly be able to tell the difference between the real celebrity and their deepfake persona.
• Don’t act upon unsolicited investment advice, whether it reaches you by email, social media, or sponsored search results.
• Use an up-to-date, real-time anti-malware solution with a web protection component or a reputable tracking and ad-blocker.
• Don’t act on impulse or under time pressure. Always properly research where your money will be going.

Pro tip: Malwarebytes Scam Guard can help you recognize and analyze scams.

Stop threats before they can do any harm.

Malwarebytes Browser Guard blocks phishing pages and malicious sites automatically. Free, one click to install. Add it to your browser →

A report based on a survey by the UK’s Internet Matters shows that much of the responsibility for managing the online safety of children still falls on families.

The Online Safety Act came into effect in July, 2025, and the report explores what has changed in the online lives of UK families since then.

We discussed in December 2025 whether the privacy risks of age verification outweighed the enhanced child protection. While the report shows some progress, it mostly provides “an early view of how the online landscape is changing, and crucially, where it is not.”

Around half of children say they now see more age-appropriate content, and roughly four in ten parents and children feel the online world has become somewhat safer.

The online world is as much a part of a child’s environment as the physical world is. And blocking the view to parts of that world is not taken lightly. Almost half of children think age checks are easy to bypass. About a third admit to doing so recently, using tactics from fake birthdates and borrowed logins to spoofed faces and, less commonly, VPNs.

“I did catch my son [12] using an eyebrow pencil to draw a moustache on his face, and it verified him as 15 years old.”

Yet 90% of children who noticed improved blocking and reporting saw this as a good thing. Their support for these safety features is pragmatic. They point to:

• clearer rules
• restricted contact with strangers
• limits on high-risk functions

 They also rate these features as helpful in reducing exposure to harmful content and interactions.

But the system is not perfect. In the month after the child protection codes came into force, almost half of children reported some online harm, including violent, hateful, and body image-related content that should be covered by the Act’s protections.

The survey also revealed that age checks are now commonplace. Over half of children said they were asked to verify their age within a recent two-month window, often on major platforms like TikTok, YouTube/Google, and Roblox, on both new and existing accounts.

The technology is improving. Platforms use facial age estimation, government ID, and third-party age assurance apps, and these are usually easy for children to complete.

However, gains in protection come with unresolved and, in some cases, growing concerns around privacy and data use, especially around age verification and AI.

Parents are worried not just about what data is collected for age checks, but whether it will be stored or reused by government or industry. This has fueled calls for central, privacy-protective solutions rather than fragmented data collection across platforms.

Because age assurance systems are both intrusive (in terms of data) and often ineffective (easy workarounds, weak enforcement), the report suggests they may not yet provide a good safety-to-privacy trade-off from a family perspective.

Obviously, the survey also didn’t capture input from adults pretending to be children to gain access to child-only spaces, a risk that parents link directly to predatory behavior.

The authors conclude that the Online Safety Act has started to reshape children’s online environments, making safety features more visible and enabling more age‑appropriate experiences in some areas.

However, the Act has not yet produced a “step change.” Harmful content remains widespread, age‑assurance is patchy and easy to circumvent, and key concerns such as time spent online, AI risks, and persuasive design remain under‑regulated.

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