For the past four years, a sprawling Android-based botnet called Popa has forced millions of consumer TV boxes to relay Internet traffic linked to advertising fraud, account takeovers, and mass data-scraping efforts. This week, researchers from multiple security firms concluded that the Popa botnet is linked to NetNut, a “residential proxy” provider operated by the publicly-traded Israeli firm Alarum Technologies Ltd [NASDAQ: ALAR].

Malicious streaming devices sold online that enroll the user’s home Internet address in a residential proxy service. Image: HUMAN Security.

Popa is a massive botnet, but by all accounts it is unlike traditional botnets that enlist compromised systems in destructive activities, such as coordinating huge distributed denial-of-service attacks. Rather, Popa appears designed with a singular purpose: Implementing a persistent communications layer capable of registering a device, maintaining long-lived encrypted connections, and opening communication tunnels on demand.

Experts say Popa is a plugin component associated with the Vo1d botnet, a large-scale malware campaign targeting unofficial Android-based TV boxes. These devices, which are marketed under thousands of brand names and model numbers and broadly available for purchase at top e-commerce destinations, all advertise the ability to stream hundreds of subscription video services for an up front one-time fee.

But as the FBI and security industry experts have warned repeatedly, these streaming boxes typically bundle or come pre-installed with software that turns the user’s TV into a “residential proxy” — allowing anyone to route their Internet traffic through that device for as long as it remains plugged into a wall socket and connected to a local network. More concerning, some of these proxy networks do little to stop malicious customers from communicating with and even compromising systems on the local network of the unsuspecting device owner.

The first clues about Popa’s origins came in a 2025 report from the Chinese security company XLAB, which flagged at least nine domain names that were used to register and direct the activities of compromised devices. In a report released today, the security firm Qurium described how it stumbled on some of those same domains while investigating a series of disruptive and expensive data scraping events targeting the company’s hosted organizations in May 2026, in which the scraping activity was scattered evenly across more than 1.4 million Internet addresses.

Qurium said it found several dozen domains used to control Popa that were all hosted in lockstep across multiple Internet addresses over time, including gmslb[.]net, safernetwork[.]io, tera-home[.]com, and ninjatech[.]io. Digging deeper, Qurium discovered gmslb[.]net was referenced in dozens of pirated or modded video content streaming apps, such as CRICFy, DooFlix, Sprozfy, RTS Tv, Flixoid, CyberFlix, Rapid Streamz, TvMob and HD/OceanStreams.

Qurium’s report notes that most of the domains long used to control the Popa botnet were seized or dismantled in July 2025, after Google, HUMAN Security and Trend Micro teamed up to disrupt Badbox 2.0, a botnet that is closely associated with Vo1d. Qurium said that immediately after that disruption, several dozen new domains were registered to serve as controllers for the Popa botnet, but that one of those control domains was not new: ninjatech[.]io.

Ninjatech is a company founded by Moishi Kramer, whose LinkedIn profile says he is vice president of research and development at NetNut. That resume credits Kramer for helping NetNut to build from the “ground up,” “designing the architecture,” and “scaling the NetNut” before the company was acquired by Alarum Technologies. A self-created listing at the job board F6S references Kramer as the sole owner of the Ninjatech domain (a screen capture of it is pictured below).

Image: F6S.com.

Responding via email, Mr. Kramer said Ninjatech ceased operations approximately five years ago, when the company sold a software development kit (SDK) called Popa that was designed to use a small portion of a device’s bandwidth and to run only after the host application obtained user consent.

“That code was sold and licensed to third parties including resellers years ago,” Kramer said. “Once software is distributed that way, the original developer has no control over how others later modify, rebrand, or deploy it.”

Kramer said neither he nor NetNut builds, operates or maintains the infrastructure being described as Popa, nor does he control the Ninjatech domain.

“I didn’t register the June 2025 domains you mention, and I don’t know who did,” he continued. “I have no control over, or visibility into, that infrastructure. I can only tell you it isn’t operated by me or by NetNut.”

But in a separate Popa research report released today, the proxy-tracking company Synthient said a recent analysis of the Popa SDK revealed outbound traffic clearly associated with NetNut.

“The research team assesses with high confidence that devices running Popa forward traffic from Netnut clients,” Synthient wrote. “This proves without a shadow of a doubt that Popa actively continues to be used by NetNut as part of their proxy pool.”

Synthient’s platform receiving outbound traffic from Popa. Image: Synthient.com.

Alarum Technologies, NetNut’s Tel Aviv-based parent company, said the reports by Synthient and Qurium contained “demonstrably inaccurate assertions and flawed deductions rather than verified facts.” Alarum shared a statement saying they reject the basic characterization of the SDKs and technologies discussed in the reports as a “botnet.”

“The SDKs at issue are designed to facilitate bandwidth-sharing functionality and do not transform user devices into malware-controlled systems or otherwise compromise the devices on which they operate,” the statement reads. “Netnut operates a commercial proxy network and maintains policies, procedures, and technological measures designed to promote lawful and responsible use of its services.”

Alarum said NetNut places “significant emphasis on appropriate notice and consent mechanisms, conducts customer due diligence, monitors for potential misuse, and takes steps intended to detect and mitigate suspicious or unauthorized activity.”

“This method of operation is supported both by internal procedures and policies, including performing KYC checks and additional due diligence of NetNut’s customers, as well as employing various technological measures, designed to assist in identifying and addressing suspected misuse of the network,” their statement continued.

However, in a report released on June 8, the proxy tracking service Spur asserted that NetNut does not require corporate verification or meaningful “know your customer” procedures before allowing customers to purchase proxy access.

“An individual can sign up, pay, and route traffic through partner address space, including space belonging to institutions whose users never opted in,” Spur wrote. “The ‘verified corporations only’ claim is simply marketing for bandwidth sellers, not an access control on who actually uses the proxies.”

“Nor is NetNut the only front door,” Spur continued. “A number of downstream white labelers and resellers repackage the same ISP proxy pool under their own brands. These outlets typically perform no KYC at all, less scrutiny than NetNut itself, who at the very least might assign an account manager to potential users. Anyone who knows where to look can buy access through a reseller with nothing more than a burner email address and $5 in crypto.”

Synthient found that although the most recent builds of Popa (as of three months ago) have added the ability to ask the user for consent before installing proxy components, not all variants or previous versions of Popa contain this functionality.

“Of the over 20 genuine Popa publishers analyzed, none of them were observed asking for user consent,” Sythient wrote.

THE PREVALENCE OF POPA

Chris Formosa is senior lead information security engineer for Black Lotus Labs, a division of the Internet backbone carrier Lumen Technologies.

“What especially makes Popa dangerous is just how widely used NetNut is for reselling and sharing,” Formosa said, explaining that many other proxy services simply resell NetNut proxies rather than building out their own far-flung proxy networks. “So these Popa IPs appear in tons of different services all over the ecosystem, which makes it one of the most problematic and dangerous proxy botnets on the market currently.”

Formosa said the Popa botnet averages between 1.5 million to 2.5 million distinct IP addresses each day, relying on between 250 and 300 Internet addresses that are used to direct its activities.

“That’s why Popa is so dangerous,” Formosa said. “It may not be the largest botnet we have seen, but it is spread all over the industry, making its power very amplified.”

Formosa said while that makes Popa one of the larger botnets out there today, its numbers pale in comparison to those previously boasted by IPIDEA, a China-based proxy provider that until recently operated a daily pool of nearly 10 million devices that they resold as proxies to anyone. In January 2026, Synthient published research showing that multiple new large DDoS botnets had grown rapidly by tunneling through IPIDEA proxies into the local networks of unsuspecting TV box owners and infecting other Android-based devices behind the user’s firewall.

IPIDEA is based largely on SDKs used to view pirated streaming content on a vast number of TV box devices, but the service’s numbers have dwindled since January, when Google and industry partners took legal action to seize domain names that IPIDEA used to control devices and proxy traffic through them.

Jérôme Meyer, a security researcher at Nokia Deepfield, said the total population of devices participating in the Popa botnet may be far higher than Lumen’s estimates. Meyer told KrebsOnSecurity that Nokia is monitoring 26 of at least 359 known relay nodes for the botnet, and estimates that each relay node handles between 35,000 and 60,000 clients simultaneously.

“On the relay node subset I am looking at (26 of them), 750,000 unique sources in 24 hours,” Meyer wrote in response to questions.

Nokia Deepfield released its own report today on RoboVPN, a VPN app tied to the Vo1d botnet’s Popa plugin that Qurium attributes to NetNut/Alarum Technologies.

THE SYMBIOSIS OF PROXIES AND DATA SCRAPING

Experts say many of the world’s largest proxy providers have updated their public-facing branding to highlight their utility for training AI platforms, implying it is a primary use case for their residential proxies. That’s because AI services tend to rely on constantly mass-scraping the Internet for new text, images and video content that can be used to train large language models (LLMs).

NetNut and other proxy services have recast themselves as critical infrastructure for the AI scraping economy. Image: Synthient.com.

“AI companies depend on web-scraped content: for pre-training, for retrieval, for agent grounding, for search,” reads a report this month from Include Security that examines the prevalence of proxy SDKs in smart TV apps. “But the modern web isn’t scrapeable from a datacenter. Cloudflare, DataDome, HUMAN, among others throttle or block requests from known cloud IPs. The workaround is residential proxies. A scraping job routed through a Comcast or T-Mobile subscriber’s connection arrives at the target site from an IP that belongs to a paying residential customer.”

This non-stop content scraping has spawned more than 70 copyright infringement lawsuits against major tech companies that have acknowledged large-scale data scraping as a major source of the “brains” behind their commercial AI offerings. Ironically, much of that scraping is being aided by proxy services that are intimately tied to unofficial Android TV boxes and associated SDKs whose stated purpose is streaming pirated content.

The scraping activity has become so aggressive that it often overwhelms the targeted websites, preventing them from being reachable by legitimate visitors. In many reported cases, nonprofit organizations, libraries and universities have complained of constantly battling to keep their services online in the face of relentless data-scraping firms hiding behind residential proxy services.

A survey conducted last year by the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) found while some content scraping bots are rather innocuous, “others are sufficiently aggressive that they are increasingly causing service disruptions in repositories and other scholarly communications infrastructures.” More than 90 percent of survey respondents indicated their repository is encountering aggressive bots, usually more than once a week, and often leading to slow downs and service outages.

“Automated web scraping is nothing new, and has been the key technology underlying search engines such as Google for over 30 years,” wrote Brendan O’Connell, platform manager at the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), a free, community-curated index of peer-reviewed academic journals. “However, the current investor-fueled AI startup craze means there are now thousands of well-funded companies developing and deploying their own scraping tools to train AI models, alongside existing major players like OpenAI and Google.”

DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL!

Across the United States, local communities are pushing back against the proliferation of new data centers aimed primarily at improving the capabilities of AI. But security experts say the general public remains largely unaware that using one of these unsanctioned Android TV boxes means their “smart TV” is almost certainly using a significant amount of bandwidth each month to help train modern AI models.

Even households without these sketchy TV boxes can still have their smart TVs turned into residential proxy nodes, just by downloading one of thousands of apps made available on Samsung and LG smart TVs. Spur said it recently scraped the LG and Samsung app stores and found that each had approximately 3,000 apps available for download. Many of these apps are simple games or utilities that state in the fine print that the user’s Internet connection will be used to download data and that they can opt out at any time.

Spur said it found that more than 42 percent of apps available for download via the webOS operating system on LG smart TVs include SDKs that turn one’s television into an always-on residential proxy node. More than a quarter of the apps made for Samsung’s Tizen operating system had similar residential proxy components, Spur found.

Image: Spur.us.

Experts say it’s questionable whether TV apps with proxy SDKs can obtain meaningful consent from users for installing an always-on proxy connection, particularly when anyone in a household — including children — can effectively opt the family TV into a residential proxy network just by installing a simple game or app.

“Privacy-policy disclosure is the wrong control surface for a TV,” Include Security wrote. “It is hard to scroll through a legal document navigated by arrow keys on a remote, and the in-app consent dialog doesn’t convey that a paying customer is about to route their scraping traffic through the user’s home internet.”

Spur’s head of research Sean Simmons told KrebsOnSecurity that most people do not have a working mental model for what it means to sell access to their residential IP address, no matter what device they are using.

“And on a TV, the gap is even wider,” Simmons said. “A one-time prompt navigated with a remote can disappear into the setup flow, while the app keeps monetizing the connection long after anyone remembers what they accepted.”

Simmons said LG and Samsung should follow the lead of other TV platforms that have already drawn a line against residential proxy providers, pointing to policies by Amazon that prohibit apps facilitating proxy services for third parties. Likewise the TV streaming device maker Roku reportedly now bars developers from using proxy SDKs and has removed apps that bundled them.

Piracy related apps pushing proxy SDKs onto unconsenting users. Image: Synthient.

Apps that turn one’s device into a residential proxy node are not limited to smart TVs and no-name streaming boxes, of course. As noted by the security firm Infoblox, mobile app developers can embed SDKs provided by the residential proxy networks into their products to monetize their software, allowing them to receive a small amount of money on each installation.

The result, Infoblox said, is that devices are frequently enrolled without the owner’s knowledge, typically through free applications such as VPNs, streaming apps, screensavers and “productivity” apps such as PDF viewers and break reminders.

All too often, these proxy services are beaconing out from employee devices brought into the workplace, Infoblox found. In a blog post earlier this month, Infoblox said it discovered that fully 65% of its customer base was querying one or more residential proxy related domains.

“We saw steady growth in these queries in 2025, with a 25% increase over the year to over 500 billion per month,” Infoblox wrote. “Over 90% of our pharmaceutical and food & beverage customers have queried residential proxy indicators. Perhaps even more concerning is that over 60% of government and banking customers have as well.”

Infoblox researchers Nick Sundvall and David Brunsdon warned that with residential proxies in the corporate environment, external access is granted to an organization’s IP space.

“If threat actors were to abuse the residential proxy to attack a third party, the third party’s incident response would, correctly, identify your residential proxy as the source,” they wrote. “Untangling that, by proving that you were the conduit and not the threat actor, costs time, creates legal exposure, and can damage your reputation. The stunning prevalence of these services within customer environments warrants attention from both network defenders and policy makers who should consider how the risks posed by residential proxies could be impacting their security posture.”

Not sure this will have any effect, but I support the effort:

According to Google’s legal filing, Outsider Enterprise operates through Telegram. The group offers phishing-as-a-service to individuals who may not be technically savvy enough to set up fraudulent websites and text campaigns on their own. In its Telegram channels, Outsider Enterprise reportedly provided instructions on how to use Google’s Gemini AI to create websites that imitate those of Google, YouTube, and government agencies such as New York’s E-ZPass. The group offered nearly 300 scam templates.

[…]

Google worked with AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile to block many of these malicious text messages, and Google notes that its on-device scam detection in Google Messages probably helped reduce the number of successful phishing attempts, too. This AI-powered feature apparently stops 10 billion scam texts every month, so it’s fair to expect it caught at least some Outsider Enterprise activity.

Another article.

Account theft usually ends with someone losing a password. This one ends with hackers walking off with the entire game.

Developers behind some of Roblox’s millions of games told 404 Media that attackers persuaded them to run a single file. Then they watched their group, their game, and their Robux (in-platform currency) balance vanish into someone else’s account within hours. In several cases, Roblox support didn’t help them get the games back until a reporter called the company for comment.

From beaming to hostile takeover

Roblox attacks used to be opportunistic. “Beamers” targeted individual players to steal rare hats, limited items, and accounts, then resold them. The pattern has shifted. The new targets are developer accounts, and the prize is the game itself.

Ioannis Matziaris told 404 Media that his two 20-year-old sons spent five years building a Roblox game called The Shadow Network. In April, attackers approached one of them with a job offer and convinced him to run a particular file. It was malware. The attackers stole control of the game, the group’s Roblox account, and their Robux balance.

Another developer, Jovan Rai, received the same project-manager job pitch. This time, the attackers were impersonating Cheesy Studios, the Matziaris brothers’ company, to lend the offer credibility. The 15-year-old was earning roughly 10,000 Robux (around $38) per day from his game. He spent more than 30 days trying to recover it through Roblox support before media attention helped move the case forward.

The malware behind the theft

Developer Mohamed Kaparoza described how the attack worked. Attackers contacted him on Discord, dangled a project-manager role, and asked him to install a Python package called “robase,” which they claimed was a database tool. Shortly after installing it, he was logged out of Roblox on both his PC and his phone. His Discord account went with it, and his two-step verification settings and passkey were changed.

This is a case of session-token theft, rather than credential theft. Once an infostealer steals an authenticated browser session, attackers can often bypass security measures such as two-factor authentication (2FA) because they are reusing a session that has already been authenticated.

The technique itself isn’t new. We reported on a similar campaign in January 2025 that targeted Roblox players with offers to beta test new games. The “installer” was actually an infostealer designed to steal data, including Discord and Steam sessions, and cryptocurrency wallet information.

What developers can do

If you build Roblox games, the defensive advice is unglamorous and mostly behavioral.

• Treat unsolicited Discord job offers with caution. If a stranger asks you to install a “database tool,” a custom installer, or any file at all, do not run it.
• Developers who need to test unfamiliar software should do so in an isolated environment, such as a virtual machine, rather than on a device where they are signed in to Roblox, Discord, GitHub, or other important accounts.
• Review active Roblox sessions and signed-in devices regularly, and switch on Roblox’s Enhanced Protection features where available. They won’t stop session-stealer malware, but they can help protect against many other forms of account compromise.
• If the worst happens, document everything as early as possible. Keep records of messages, screenshots, account changes, and support requests to help with any recovery process.
• Use security software with real-time protection. Malwarebytes Premium can detect and block infostealers and other malware before they compromise your accounts.
  

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.

Account theft usually ends with someone losing a password. This one ends with hackers walking off with the entire game.

Developers behind some of Roblox’s millions of games told 404 Media that attackers persuaded them to run a single file. Then they watched their group, their game, and their Robux (in-platform currency) balance vanish into someone else’s account within hours. In several cases, Roblox support didn’t help them get the games back until a reporter called the company for comment.

From beaming to hostile takeover

Roblox attacks used to be opportunistic. “Beamers” targeted individual players to steal rare hats, limited items, and accounts, then resold them. The pattern has shifted. The new targets are developer accounts, and the prize is the game itself.

Ioannis Matziaris told 404 Media that his two 20-year-old sons spent five years building a Roblox game called The Shadow Network. In April, attackers approached one of them with a job offer and convinced him to run a particular file. It was malware. The attackers stole control of the game, the group’s Roblox account, and their Robux balance.

Another developer, Jovan Rai, received the same project-manager job pitch. This time, the attackers were impersonating Cheesy Studios, the Matziaris brothers’ company, to lend the offer credibility. The 15-year-old was earning roughly 10,000 Robux (around $38) per day from his game. He spent more than 30 days trying to recover it through Roblox support before media attention helped move the case forward.

The malware behind the theft

Developer Mohamed Kaparoza described how the attack worked. Attackers contacted him on Discord, dangled a project-manager role, and asked him to install a Python package called “robase,” which they claimed was a database tool. Shortly after installing it, he was logged out of Roblox on both his PC and his phone. His Discord account went with it, and his two-step verification settings and passkey were changed.

This is a case of session-token theft, rather than credential theft. Once an infostealer steals an authenticated browser session, attackers can often bypass security measures such as two-factor authentication (2FA) because they are reusing a session that has already been authenticated.

The technique itself isn’t new. We reported on a similar campaign in January 2025 that targeted Roblox players with offers to beta test new games. The “installer” was actually an infostealer designed to steal data, including Discord and Steam sessions, and cryptocurrency wallet information.

What developers can do

If you build Roblox games, the defensive advice is unglamorous and mostly behavioral.

• Treat unsolicited Discord job offers with caution. If a stranger asks you to install a “database tool,” a custom installer, or any file at all, do not run it.
• Developers who need to test unfamiliar software should do so in an isolated environment, such as a virtual machine, rather than on a device where they are signed in to Roblox, Discord, GitHub, or other important accounts.
• Review active Roblox sessions and signed-in devices regularly, and switch on Roblox’s Enhanced Protection features where available. They won’t stop session-stealer malware, but they can help protect against many other forms of account compromise.
• If the worst happens, document everything as early as possible. Keep records of messages, screenshots, account changes, and support requests to help with any recovery process.
• Use security software with real-time protection. Malwarebytes Premium can detect and block infostealers and other malware before they compromise your accounts.
  

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.

The attackers deployed a new Go-based backdoor that uses Microsoft Teams servers for command-and-control.

The post Microsoft Teams Relay Servers Abused in DragonForce Ransomware Attack appeared first on SecurityWeek.

In this blog post you’ll learn how to detect and prevent subdomain takeover – a tactic where threat actors exploit dangling DNS records to redirect traffic to attacker-controlled resources. We’ll explain the issue, how the situation arises, and how you can use various AWS features and services to help mitigate the impact of this tactic.

Under the shared responsibility model, securing configurations in the cloud is your responsibility. AWS supports you through strong defaults, guidance in the Security Pillar of the Well-Architected Framework, and security services to help you meet that responsibility. The AWS Customer Incident Response Team (AWS CIRT) also monitors for new and trending tactics that threat actors use to exploit specific customer configurations, so that you can make informed design decisions and improve your response plans.

AWS CIRT has observed threat actors actively scanning for public DNS CNAME records that point to resources that no longer exist, looking for subdomain takeover opportunities.

Note: The subdomain takeover tactic does not leverage vulnerabilities of AWS services. It exploits a dangling DNS record to redirect traffic to an attacker-controlled resource.

Quick DNS Primer

CNAME Records: A CNAME (Canonical Name) record is a DNS entry that points one domain name to another. For example, api.example.com can be configured to point to api.example.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com. This feature of DNS enables users to configure a memorable, human-friendly domain name while the actual resource lives at a longer, machine-generated AWS hostname. A security issue emerges when the target resource is deleted but the CNAME record pointing to it remains – creating a “dangling” record.

Dangling Records: When a resource (like an S3 bucket) is deleted but the DNS record pointing to it is left behind, that DNS record becomes “dangling”, pointing to a resource that no longer exists. For resources in globally shared namespaces, threat actors can potentially reclaim the name of your deleted resource and serve malicious content through your DNS record.

What is subdomain takeover?

A subdomain is a prefix added to a domain that allows you to organize access to your resources. A subdomain takeover occurs when you delete the underlying resource and a threat actor creates a new resource with the same name to take advantage of the DNS records still pointing to it.

A subdomain takeover is possible when a CNAME record points to an AWS resource that uses a globally shared DNS namespace where the resource name can be chosen by any AWS customer. The following AWS resources meet these criteria:

Amazon S3 (global namespace): Bucket names like mybucket.s3.amazonaws.com are globally unique and can be claimed by any account if the bucket is deleted. Note: S3 buckets created with account regional namespaces (launched March 2026) are scoped to your account and are not subject to this issue.

Amazon CloudFront: Distribution domain names like d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net are assigned by AWS and cannot be chosen by an attacker. However, if you delete a distribution and another customer creates one that happens to receive the same domain name, a dangling CNAME could resolve to their content.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk: Environment names like myapp.elasticbeanstalk.com are globally unique and can be claimed by any account if the environment is terminated.

Resources like Amazon VPC, Amazon EC2 instances, or private hosted zones are not subject to this tactic because they do not expose globally claimable DNS namespaces.

MITRE ATT&CK classifies this technique under T1584.001: Compromise Infrastructure – Domains.

Analyzing an example scenario

Consider the following scenario:

You create a DNS CNAME record pointing to your S3 website endpoint. The subdomain subdomain.example.com now resolves to subdomain.example.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com, which serves content from the S3 bucket named subdomain.example. If your team deletes the bucket and forgets to delete the DNS record, users that navigate to the site will see an error stating that the bucket doesn’t exist. However, at this point, if a threat actor sees this error and moves in to claim the bucket name, they will be able to set up their own site that users will see when they navigate to the subdomain.example.com site.

Figure 1 shows an S3 bucket named subdomain.example (a globally unique bucket name) configured to host a static website, with the S3 website endpoint subdomain.example.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com.

Figure 1: S3 bucket configured as a static website

As shown in Figure 2, we use Amazon Route 53 to create a CNAME record to resolve to our Amazon domain name; to give users a friendly name and so they do not have to remember the long S3 website name in URLs.

Figure 2: DNS Resolver configured with CNAME record pointing to origin bucket

The customer’s AWS administrator decides to stop serving content from the S3 bucket and deletes it, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Resource deleted without removing the CNAME record

With the S3 bucket deleted and the CNAME record still in place, the DNS record is now dangling. A threat actor identifies this situation and creates a new S3 bucket with the same global name subdomain.example in an AWS account that the threat actor controls, as shown in Figure 4. The threat actor can now serve content from this new bucket, including potentially malicious content. End users remain unaware of this switch and continue to access subdomain.example.com, trusting the content because it appears to originate from a URL they recognize.

Figure 4: Subdomain takeover happens

Potential impacts of a sub-domain takeover

Consider these potential impacts:

Reputation risk: There is a potential risk to your organization’s reputation, because you don’t control the content being served from the threat actor’s site that your DNS record points to.

Potential exposure to phishing campaigns: Users within your organization might have the subdomain bookmarked in their browser, not knowing the resource is no longer available, then unsuspectingly navigate to the site that now hosts malware or is used to phish user credentials.

Blocking: If the subdomain is flagged by security vendors for malicious activity, it could impact your business operations.

Financial loss: Subdomain takeover incidents can result in a financial impact due to the potential disruption to service delivery as you deal with the event.

Proactive detection

AWS Config for proactive detection

For proactive detection, you can use AWS Config to continuously monitor your Route 53 CNAME records and verify that the target resources exist in your account.

Prerequisite: This approach requires AWS Config recorder to be enabled for the resource types you want to monitor (S3 buckets, CloudFront distributions, Elastic Beanstalk environments). If Config isn’t recording a resource type, it won’t appear in the inventory check. For more information, see Setting up AWS Config with the console.

Why use AWS Config inventory instead of DNS resolution checks?

A common approach is to check whether a CNAME resolves to a valid endpoint. However, this method has a critical flaw: if an attacker has already claimed the resource, DNS resolution will succeed – to their resource, not yours. You would have no indication that you don’t own what’s responding.

By querying AWS Config’s recorded configuration items, you’re checking whether the resource exists in your account inventory, not just whether something responds at that DNS name. This approach correctly identifies dangling CNAMEs even after a takeover has occurred.

Implementation approach:

Account-level vs. organization-level scope

The reference implementation queries AWS Config inventory within a single account. This means that if a CNAME record in Account A points to a resource that legitimately exists in Account B within the same AWS organization, the rule will flag it as NON_COMPLIANT.

For organizations that share resources across accounts, you can modify the solution to use an AWS Config Aggregator, which queries resource inventory across all accounts in your organization. This is similar to how IAM Access Analyzer supports both account-level and organization-level scopes. To use this approach, you need an organization-level Config Aggregator already configured, and the Lambda function’s IAM role needs the config:SelectAggregateResourceConfig permission.

We recommend starting with account-level scope for simplicity, then expanding to organization-level if your environment includes cross-account resource sharing.

The main idea is to create a custom AWS Config rule that queries your Route 53 hosted zones for CNAME records, then parses each CNAME target to determine whether it points to a known AWS resource pattern such as S3, CloudFront, or Elastic Beanstalk. For each match, the rule cross-references the target against your AWS Config inventory to verify that the resource actually exists in your account. If the resource isn’t found, the rule marks the CNAME record as NON_COMPLIANT, surfacing it for review.

The Config rule should focus on known AWS resource patterns:

• S3: *.s3.amazonaws.com, *.s3-website-<region>.amazonaws.com
• CloudFront: *.cloudfront.net
• Elastic Beanstalk: *.elasticbeanstalk.com

Note: CNAME records pointing to external third-party services are outside the scope of this detection mechanism, as those resources won’t appear in your AWS Config inventory.

NON_COMPLIANT findings from your Config rule can be routed to AWS Security Hub for centralized visibility, or trigger SNS notifications to alert your security team.

Figure 5: Dangling DNS Detection Solution

Reference implementation:

We’ve published a complete implementation of this detection approach as an open-source solution. The solution deploys a Lambda function that discovers CNAME records across all your Route 53 hosted zones and uses pattern matching to identify targets pointing to S3, CloudFront, and Elastic Beanstalk. It then queries your AWS Config inventory to verify whether each target resource still exists in your account. When a dangling record is detected, the solution generates a HIGH severity finding in Security Hub and can optionally send SNS notifications to alert your security team. A CloudWatch metrics dashboard is also included for ongoing compliance tracking.

Deployment:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/aws-samples/sample-dangling-dns-detection
cd sample-dangling-dns-detection

# Build the Lambda deployment package
./scripts/package.sh

# Upload to S3
aws s3 cp dist/dangling-dns-detection.zip s3://YOUR_BUCKET/

# Deploy the CloudFormation stack
aws cloudformation deploy \
  --template-file infrastructure/template.yaml \
  --stack-name dangling-dns-detection \
  --parameter-overrides \
      LambdaCodeS3Bucket=YOUR_BUCKET \
      EvaluationFrequency=TwentyFour_Hours \
  --capabilities CAPABILITY_NAMED_IAM

The stack creates an AWS Config custom rule that runs on your specified schedule (default: every 24 hours), evaluating all CNAME records and reporting compliance status.

Mitigating the effects

Mitigating subdomain takeover requires both preventive procedures and responsive capabilities.

Prevention: Standard operating procedure

The most effective mitigation is a standard operating procedure for resource deprovisioning that ensures DNS records are removed before the underlying resource:

1. Within your DNS zone, delete the CNAME record that points to the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the resource that you plan to deprovision.
2. Wait for the DNS TTL to expire before deleting the resource. DNS resolvers cache records for the duration of the TTL (for example, a TTL of 3600 means resolvers may serve the old record for up to one hour). If you delete the resource before the TTL expires, a threat actor could claim the resource name while cached CNAME entries are still directing traffic to it.
3. Deprovision the resource that you no longer want to use.
4. Run a DNS check of the CNAME record that you removed to verify that the resource is no longer resolving.

Key principle: Always delete DNS first, wait for the TTL to expire, then delete the resource. This order eliminates the window where a dangling record could be exploited.

Prevention: S3 account regional namespaces

As mentioned earlier, AWS introduced account regional namespaces for Amazon S3 general purpose buckets in March 2026. While this is a meaningful step toward mitigating the S3-specific takeover vector, there are important operational limitations to be aware of:

Existing buckets are unaffected. Buckets already created in the global namespace cannot be migrated to an account regional namespace. The bucket names remain globally unique and claimable by anyone if the bucket is deleted.

Global namespace is still the default. When creating a new bucket through the console, CLI, or SDK, the global namespace remains the default selection. Users who aren’t aware of the new option will continue creating globally-scoped buckets.

Existing IaC templates require updates. Existing infrastructure-as-code templates (CloudFormation, CDK, Terraform) that don’t explicitly opt in to the account regional namespace will continue provisioning buckets in the global namespace. For CloudFormation, this means setting the BucketNamespace property to account-regional. For other IaC tools, consult their documentation for the equivalent configuration. Organizations need to audit and update their templates to opt in.

For these reasons, the dangling DNS detection approach described in this post remains critical – particularly for organizations with existing S3 infrastructure, and for CloudFront, and Elastic Beanstalk resources where no equivalent namespace scoping exists.

Response: Notification and remediation

When a dangling DNS record is detected, the reference solution described in the Detection section automatically creates a HIGH severity finding in AWS Security Hub and reports the CNAME record as NON_COMPLIANT in AWS Config. If you provide an SNS topic ARN during deployment, the solution also sends notifications to alert your security or operations team via email, Slack, or other channels. For production environments, consider a human-in-the-loop workflow where these notifications are reviewed by a team member who approves the DNS record deletion before it’s executed. This prevents accidental deletion of legitimate records during transient issues.

The reference solution also includes a CloudWatch dashboard for tracking compliance status and evaluation metrics over time, giving your team ongoing visibility into DNS health across your hosted zones.

Note: Fully automated remediation (auto-deleting DNS records) carries risk – a false positive could disrupt legitimate services. We recommend starting with detection and notification, then evaluating automation based on your detection accuracy and operational maturity.

Conclusion

Subdomain takeover is a preventable misconfiguration that can have significant impact on your organization. A layered defense approach provides the best protection:

Prevention: Implement a standard operating procedure that deletes DNS records before deprovisioning the underlying resource.

Detection: Use AWS Config custom rules to proactively identify CNAME records pointing to resources that no longer exist in your account.

Response: Configure notifications through SNS or Security Hub so your team can respond quickly when dangling records are detected.

Monitoring: Maintain ongoing visibility through CloudWatch dashboards to track DNS health and compliance status.

The key insight is that good DNS hygiene – knowing when your CNAME records point to a nonexistent resource – is your first line of defense. Automated detection through AWS Config provides a safety net when operational procedures fail. And if you detect an issue, having a playbook ready to enact your response can lower the impact and your mean time to recovery.

If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below.

With the World Cup on, you’ll find no shortage of websites promising every match, live, in HD, for free. They look convincing, usually with a video player, a “Live Stream Available” indicator, a row of server buttons, maybe a match schedule, and a “Watch Live” button. There’s no signup, no paywall, and seemingly, no catch.

But of course there’s a catch. These sites aren’t really in the business of streaming football. What the page is really built to do is fire pop-ups, hidden ads, and redirects through an advertising network we detect as malicious. Instead of watching the match, visitors end up facing scams, malware, and fraudulent downloads.

Here’s how the scam works and how to stay out of it.

If they’re not real streaming sites, what are they?

We’ve identified more than 40 websites that are effectively identical. They use different World Cup-themed names, but behind the scenes they’re running the same page template, the same code, and the same advertising infrastructure.

A script generates a separate page for every match, making the operation cheap to run and easy to scale.

When a stream appears at all, it’s usually embedded from a third-party piracy service. The real business is the advertising surrounding the player.

A typical page loads eight or more ad and tracking scripts from the same shady network, plus a handful of other ad domains. The hub the whole page is wired to is a domain we detect as malicious. Your data is the product; the “stream” is the bait.

Why these sites are dangerous, not just annoying

It’s tempting to shrug this off as the usual price of free streams. But it’s worse than facing a few annoying ads.

The real threat is the ad network. This isn’t mainstream, vetted advertising. The kind of ad network we flag as malicious is a common delivery route for the stuff that causes harm: fake virus warnings, bogus software update prompts that install malware, fake prize and verification pages, and forced redirects into subscription traps.

The video window itself is untrusted. The stream is pulled from a third-party piracy service, not anything the site controls or vets. Pirated stream embeds are a well-known source of their own ads, redirects, and hidden clickable overlays, so even the part that looks like a video player can be working against you.

There’s nobody behind the counter. These are anonymous, disposable sites built around a major sporting event. There’s no real company, no support, no accountability, and no reason for them to care what lands on your screen.

It’s the oldest play in the scam handbook: take something millions of people want right now, present it nicely, and monetize the rush. Scammers don’t create the demand, they just stand in front of it with a bucket and collect payment.

How it works (a quick technical version)

The first tap is hijacked. A script waits for your first click or tap anywhere on the page and uses it to open an ad in a new tab or window, often in the background. Before you’ve watched a second of football, you’ve already triggered an ad.

The “Play” button is a maze. Clicking Play doesn’t play anything. Instead, you’re sent through prompts like “Click Resume to continue” before you might reach a video. Every extra step is another click, and each click triggers more ads.

Invisible ads load. The page quietly loads tiny, invisible 1×1-pixel ads and opens more tabs. These exist purely to generate paid ad views. The tactic has many of the hallmarks of ad fraud, and you’re the unwitting traffic. More ads are injected into the player area the moment you try to watch.

The stream is an afterthought. Often there’s no working stream at all, so the page loops you through “Streams loading… Retry,” which means more clicks and more ads. Whether you ever see the match or not, the ads have already cashed in.

What the ads are serving up

The code fires the ads; but here’s what comes out the other end. On these pages, the injected ads tend to fall into two buckets, and neither has anything to do with football.

The first is fake message notifications: little pop-ups designed to look like real chat alerts, complete with a stranger’s photo and messages such as “Seen my message yet? Let’s talk!” Some include fake voice messages or explicit thumbnails. They’re made to look like notifications you’ve forgotten to check so you’ll click them.

The second is crypto bait. These ads promote “play-to-earn” games with promises of daily rewards, surprise drops, massive airdrops, and eye-catching claims like a “124% APY yield engine.”

One warning sign is the promise of guaranteed triple-digit returns and free money for tapping a button. That’s not how legitimate financial products work.

That’s the whole machine working end to end: football is the doorway, the malicious advertising network is the engine, and the scams are what it’s actually selling.

How to watch the World Cup safely

These “Free HD stream, every match, no catch” sites use football as bait to funnel visitors through a malicious advertising network. Here’s how to stay safe:

• Use official broadcasters and streaming services. That’s where the legal and safe coverage lives.
• Treat “every match, free, HD, no signup” as a red flag. Broadcast rights are expensive. If a random website is giving everything away for free, it’s making money some other way.
• Don’t follow a maze of interactions. If a streaming site opens pop-ups, launches extra tabs, or sends you through endless “click to continue” screens, close it.
• Never trust warnings or download prompts on these sites. Don’t download anything, install anything, or enter any information.
• Block ads and trackers in the browser. A tool like Malwarebytes Browser Guard can block the advertising and tracking domains these sites rely on, helping stop pop-ups and redirects before they load.
• Keep your software up to date. Browser and operating system updates often fix security vulnerabilities that attackers try to exploit.
• Use up-to-date, real-time anti-malware. If you do click something malicious, products like Malwarebytes Premium can block and remove malware before it causes damage.

Indicators of compromise (IoCs)

Domains

arenaworldcupfootball.xyz
footballworldcup.xyz
freeworldcup.xyz
freeworldcupstream.xyz
freeworldcupstreaming.xyz
livestreamingworldcup.xyz
livestreamworldcup.xyz
liveworldcup.today
liveworldcup.xyz
liveworldcup2026.xyz
liveworldcupmatch.xyz
matchoraworldcup.world
matchworldcup.xyz
sportivaworldcup.xyz
sportworldcuponline.xyz
watchworldcup.watch
watchworldcup.world
watchworldcup2026.xyz
watchworldcupfree.live
watchworldcupfree.online
watchworldcupfree.xyz
worldcup2026match.xyz
worldcuparena.xyz
worldcupfoootballmatch.xyz
worldcupfootball.live
worldcupfootballmat.live
worldcupfootballmatch.live
worldcupfootbmatch.xyz
worldcupfreeonline.xyz
worldcuplive.world
worldcuplivestream.online
worldcupmatch.online
worldcupmatch.world
worldcupmatch.xyz
worldcupmatchlive.live
worldcupsoccer.live
worldcupsoccermatch.live
worldcupstreameast.online
worldcupstreameast.xyz
worldcupusa.world
worldcupusa.xyz

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 →

With the World Cup on, you’ll find no shortage of websites promising every match, live, in HD, for free. They look convincing, usually with a video player, a “Live Stream Available” indicator, a row of server buttons, maybe a match schedule, and a “Watch Live” button. There’s no signup, no paywall, and seemingly, no catch.

But of course there’s a catch. These sites aren’t really in the business of streaming football. What the page is really built to do is fire pop-ups, hidden ads, and redirects through an advertising network we detect as malicious. Instead of watching the match, visitors end up facing scams, malware, and fraudulent downloads.

Here’s how the scam works and how to stay out of it.

If they’re not real streaming sites, what are they?

We’ve identified more than 40 websites that are effectively identical. They use different World Cup-themed names, but behind the scenes they’re running the same page template, the same code, and the same advertising infrastructure.

A script generates a separate page for every match, making the operation cheap to run and easy to scale.

When a stream appears at all, it’s usually embedded from a third-party piracy service. The real business is the advertising surrounding the player.

A typical page loads eight or more ad and tracking scripts from the same shady network, plus a handful of other ad domains. The hub the whole page is wired to is a domain we detect as malicious. Your data is the product; the “stream” is the bait.

Why these sites are dangerous, not just annoying

It’s tempting to shrug this off as the usual price of free streams. But it’s worse than facing a few annoying ads.

The real threat is the ad network. This isn’t mainstream, vetted advertising. The kind of ad network we flag as malicious is a common delivery route for the stuff that causes harm: fake virus warnings, bogus software update prompts that install malware, fake prize and verification pages, and forced redirects into subscription traps.

The video window itself is untrusted. The stream is pulled from a third-party piracy service, not anything the site controls or vets. Pirated stream embeds are a well-known source of their own ads, redirects, and hidden clickable overlays, so even the part that looks like a video player can be working against you.

There’s nobody behind the counter. These are anonymous, disposable sites built around a major sporting event. There’s no real company, no support, no accountability, and no reason for them to care what lands on your screen.

It’s the oldest play in the scam handbook: take something millions of people want right now, present it nicely, and monetize the rush. Scammers don’t create the demand, they just stand in front of it with a bucket and collect payment.

How it works (a quick technical version)

The first tap is hijacked. A script waits for your first click or tap anywhere on the page and uses it to open an ad in a new tab or window, often in the background. Before you’ve watched a second of football, you’ve already triggered an ad.

The “Play” button is a maze. Clicking Play doesn’t play anything. Instead, you’re sent through prompts like “Click Resume to continue” before you might reach a video. Every extra step is another click, and each click triggers more ads.

Invisible ads load. The page quietly loads tiny, invisible 1×1-pixel ads and opens more tabs. These exist purely to generate paid ad views. The tactic has many of the hallmarks of ad fraud, and you’re the unwitting traffic. More ads are injected into the player area the moment you try to watch.

The stream is an afterthought. Often there’s no working stream at all, so the page loops you through “Streams loading… Retry,” which means more clicks and more ads. Whether you ever see the match or not, the ads have already cashed in.

What the ads are serving up

The code fires the ads; but here’s what comes out the other end. On these pages, the injected ads tend to fall into two buckets, and neither has anything to do with football.

The first is fake message notifications: little pop-ups designed to look like real chat alerts, complete with a stranger’s photo and messages such as “Seen my message yet? Let’s talk!” Some include fake voice messages or explicit thumbnails. They’re made to look like notifications you’ve forgotten to check so you’ll click them.

The second is crypto bait. These ads promote “play-to-earn” games with promises of daily rewards, surprise drops, massive airdrops, and eye-catching claims like a “124% APY yield engine.”

One warning sign is the promise of guaranteed triple-digit returns and free money for tapping a button. That’s not how legitimate financial products work.

That’s the whole machine working end to end: football is the doorway, the malicious advertising network is the engine, and the scams are what it’s actually selling.

How to watch the World Cup safely

These “Free HD stream, every match, no catch” sites use football as bait to funnel visitors through a malicious advertising network. Here’s how to stay safe:

• Use official broadcasters and streaming services. That’s where the legal and safe coverage lives.
• Treat “every match, free, HD, no signup” as a red flag. Broadcast rights are expensive. If a random website is giving everything away for free, it’s making money some other way.
• Don’t follow a maze of interactions. If a streaming site opens pop-ups, launches extra tabs, or sends you through endless “click to continue” screens, close it.
• Never trust warnings or download prompts on these sites. Don’t download anything, install anything, or enter any information.
• Block ads and trackers in the browser. A tool like Malwarebytes Browser Guard can block the advertising and tracking domains these sites rely on, helping stop pop-ups and redirects before they load.
• Keep your software up to date. Browser and operating system updates often fix security vulnerabilities that attackers try to exploit.
• Use up-to-date, real-time anti-malware. If you do click something malicious, products like Malwarebytes Premium can block and remove malware before it causes damage.

Indicators of compromise (IoCs)

Domains

arenaworldcupfootball.xyz
footballworldcup.xyz
freeworldcup.xyz
freeworldcupstream.xyz
freeworldcupstreaming.xyz
livestreamingworldcup.xyz
livestreamworldcup.xyz
liveworldcup.today
liveworldcup.xyz
liveworldcup2026.xyz
liveworldcupmatch.xyz
matchoraworldcup.world
matchworldcup.xyz
sportivaworldcup.xyz
sportworldcuponline.xyz
watchworldcup.watch
watchworldcup.world
watchworldcup2026.xyz
watchworldcupfree.live
watchworldcupfree.online
watchworldcupfree.xyz
worldcup2026match.xyz
worldcuparena.xyz
worldcupfoootballmatch.xyz
worldcupfootball.live
worldcupfootballmat.live
worldcupfootballmatch.live
worldcupfootbmatch.xyz
worldcupfreeonline.xyz
worldcuplive.world
worldcuplivestream.online
worldcupmatch.online
worldcupmatch.world
worldcupmatch.xyz
worldcupmatchlive.live
worldcupsoccer.live
worldcupsoccermatch.live
worldcupstreameast.online
worldcupstreameast.xyz
worldcupusa.world
worldcupusa.xyz

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 →

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts

• This week’s question: Is ‘ripen at home’ fruit the supermarkets’ idea of a joke?

I’ve been struggling to get my head around the idea that a passkey, which can be a pin on your phone, or facial recognition, can be safer than using a complicated password and two-factor authentication.

I get that having something unique to your device, not stored on a company’s server, is unphishable and less hackable by cybercrims, but what if your phone is nicked and someone guesses the password? And what if you lose your phone?

Online gamers should watch out for a convincing scam that aims to steal your Steam account.

The scam uses fake FACEIT verification pages that look legitimate, complete with official branding, working links, and what appears to be a real Steam login window. By the time it asks for your password, many victims are convinced they’re interacting with a genuine service.

The goal is to steal your Steam account.

Why this scam targets FACEIT players

If you’re not a competitive gamer, FACEIT might not mean anything to you. But to millions of people, it’s a big deal, and that makes it a target for impersonation by cybercriminals.

FACEIT is one of the largest competitive gaming platforms for Counter-Strike 2 (CS2). Millions of players use it for ranked matches, tournaments, leagues, and advanced anti-cheat protections.

To use FACEIT, players typically connect their Steam platform accounts, which are valuable for scammers.

A stolen Steam account can contain:

• Hundreds or thousands of dollars’ worth of purchased games
• Valuable CS2 skins and items, some worth significant amounts of real money
• Wallet funds and saved payment methods
• Years of friends, messages, and community reputation

Once criminals gain access, they can steal items, scam friends, or sell the account on criminal marketplaces.

Because FACEIT connects to Steam, a fake “FACEIT verification” page is an easy way to trick people. Victims think they’re updating their account, but attackers are really trying to steal Steam accounts that may contain valuable games, skins, and wallet funds. Gamers are especially vulnerable because they’re used to linking accounts and following verification steps, and may act quickly if they think their access to a game is at risk.

How the scam works

The attack starts with a website that looks like an official FACEIT page. The scam pages are likely distributed through the same channels gamers use every day: community forums, chat servers, social media posts, and direct messages.

The page claims FACEIT is offering free, optional identity verification to help build a more trusted community. It’s polished, uses the correct branding, and even includes working links to FACEIT’s real blog and support pages. Everything about it is designed to make you think you’re on a genuine FACEIT website, but you’re not.

Instead of using the official faceit.com domain, the scammers use lookalike addresses such as:

• faceit-discord.com
• faceit-clubs-verify.com
• faceit-verification-clubs.com

The extra words like “verification” or “discord,” are designed to make these addresses look legitimate at a glance, but they’re sites that are controlled by cybercriminals.

Many of these domains are only days or even hours old. Scammers constantly register new ones, knowing they’ll likely be blocked eventually. That’s why a site not being flagged as dangerous doesn’t mean it’s safe.

There are small clues, though. In one example, the page listed both “Copyright 2024” and “Copyright 2025.” Legitimate companies rarely make mistakes like that, but scam sites often do.

After the verification pitch, the page claims there’s a problem with your CS2 account and asks you to update your information to prove you’re not a cheater or using a smurf account.

Here’s the clever part. The QR code appears blurry and difficult to scan. Researchers believe that’s intentional. After a few failed attempts, many users are likely to give up and click the easier-looking “Sign in through Steam” button instead.

The broken QR code is the nudge that guides victims toward the part of the page where the real theft happens.

When users eventually give up on the QR code and click the button, a Steam login window appears. It looks convincing, complete with the Steam logo, login fields, and what appears to be a steamcommunity.com address bar.

But the window is fake.

Instead of opening a real Steam login page, the scammers display a convincing copy inside the website itself. Security researchers call this a Browser-in-the-Browser attack. The fake window looks and behaves like a genuine browser pop-up, but the address bar is just part of the image.

Anything entered into the form goes straight to the criminals. If the page also asks for a Steam Guard code, that gets stolen too, allowing attackers to access the account. Some victims are then tricked into “protecting” their items by transferring them to a friend or backup account, when they’re actually sending them directly to the scammers.

How to protect yourself against this scam

A few simple habits can stop this scam:

• Check the real address bar. FACEIT’s official website is faceit.com. Be wary of lookalike domains such as faceit-discord.com or faceit-clubs-verify.com. Remember: a login window inside a webpage can fake its own address bar. Trust the one at the top of your browser, not the one inside the page.
• Be suspicious of blurry QR codes. Researchers believe the QR code in this scam is deliberately blurred to push users toward the “Sign in through Steam” button instead.
• Treat urgency as a warning sign. Messages about account problems, verification, or losing access are designed to make you act quickly. Slow down and verify first.
• Go to the source. If you’re unsure whether FACEIT or Steam needs something from you, open the official website or app yourself rather than following links from Discord, messages, or ads.
• Add another layer of protection. Scam sites often look legitimate. Malwarebytes Browser Guard can help block known phishing pages and other online scams before you enter your username and password.
  

If you already entered your details

Change your Steam password immediately, make sure Steam Guard is enabled, and sign out of all other devices. Check your Steam API key settings and remove any key you don’t recognize. Change the password anywhere else you reused it and review your account for unauthorized trades or purchases.

Why this scam works

This scam works because it doesn’t look like a scam. The branding is convincing, the story makes sense, and even the Steam login window appears legitimate.

Most people know to check the address bar before entering a password. Browser-in-the-Browser attacks are designed to defeat that habit. Because the fake Steam window is built into the page itself, the criminals can make its address bar say whatever they want, including steamcommunity.com.

The safest approach is to be suspicious of any login window that appears inside another website. If you’re unsure, close the page and sign in to Steam the way you normally would, through the official app or by typing the address yourself.

That small pause, that refusal to take the convenient shortcut a page is pushing you toward, is all it takes to keep your account yours.

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 →

Online gamers should watch out for a convincing scam that aims to steal your Steam account.

The scam uses fake FACEIT verification pages that look legitimate, complete with official branding, working links, and what appears to be a real Steam login window. By the time it asks for your password, many victims are convinced they’re interacting with a genuine service.

The goal is to steal your Steam account.

Why this scam targets FACEIT players

If you’re not a competitive gamer, FACEIT might not mean anything to you. But to millions of people, it’s a big deal, and that makes it a target for impersonation by cybercriminals.

FACEIT is one of the largest competitive gaming platforms for Counter-Strike 2 (CS2). Millions of players use it for ranked matches, tournaments, leagues, and advanced anti-cheat protections.

To use FACEIT, players typically connect their Steam platform accounts, which are valuable for scammers.

A stolen Steam account can contain:

• Hundreds or thousands of dollars’ worth of purchased games
• Valuable CS2 skins and items, some worth significant amounts of real money
• Wallet funds and saved payment methods
• Years of friends, messages, and community reputation

Once criminals gain access, they can steal items, scam friends, or sell the account on criminal marketplaces.

Because FACEIT connects to Steam, a fake “FACEIT verification” page is an easy way to trick people. Victims think they’re updating their account, but attackers are really trying to steal Steam accounts that may contain valuable games, skins, and wallet funds. Gamers are especially vulnerable because they’re used to linking accounts and following verification steps, and may act quickly if they think their access to a game is at risk.

How the scam works

The attack starts with a website that looks like an official FACEIT page. The scam pages are likely distributed through the same channels gamers use every day: community forums, chat servers, social media posts, and direct messages.

The page claims FACEIT is offering free, optional identity verification to help build a more trusted community. It’s polished, uses the correct branding, and even includes working links to FACEIT’s real blog and support pages. Everything about it is designed to make you think you’re on a genuine FACEIT website, but you’re not.

Instead of using the official faceit.com domain, the scammers use lookalike addresses such as:

• faceit-discord.com
• faceit-clubs-verify.com
• faceit-verification-clubs.com

The extra words like “verification” or “discord,” are designed to make these addresses look legitimate at a glance, but they’re sites that are controlled by cybercriminals.

Many of these domains are only days or even hours old. Scammers constantly register new ones, knowing they’ll likely be blocked eventually. That’s why a site not being flagged as dangerous doesn’t mean it’s safe.

There are small clues, though. In one example, the page listed both “Copyright 2024” and “Copyright 2025.” Legitimate companies rarely make mistakes like that, but scam sites often do.

After the verification pitch, the page claims there’s a problem with your CS2 account and asks you to update your information to prove you’re not a cheater or using a smurf account.

Here’s the clever part. The QR code appears blurry and difficult to scan. Researchers believe that’s intentional. After a few failed attempts, many users are likely to give up and click the easier-looking “Sign in through Steam” button instead.

The broken QR code is the nudge that guides victims toward the part of the page where the real theft happens.

When users eventually give up on the QR code and click the button, a Steam login window appears. It looks convincing, complete with the Steam logo, login fields, and what appears to be a steamcommunity.com address bar.

But the window is fake.

Instead of opening a real Steam login page, the scammers display a convincing copy inside the website itself. Security researchers call this a Browser-in-the-Browser attack. The fake window looks and behaves like a genuine browser pop-up, but the address bar is just part of the image.

Anything entered into the form goes straight to the criminals. If the page also asks for a Steam Guard code, that gets stolen too, allowing attackers to access the account. Some victims are then tricked into “protecting” their items by transferring them to a friend or backup account, when they’re actually sending them directly to the scammers.

How to protect yourself against this scam

A few simple habits can stop this scam:

• Check the real address bar. FACEIT’s official website is faceit.com. Be wary of lookalike domains such as faceit-discord.com or faceit-clubs-verify.com. Remember: a login window inside a webpage can fake its own address bar. Trust the one at the top of your browser, not the one inside the page.
• Be suspicious of blurry QR codes. Researchers believe the QR code in this scam is deliberately blurred to push users toward the “Sign in through Steam” button instead.
• Treat urgency as a warning sign. Messages about account problems, verification, or losing access are designed to make you act quickly. Slow down and verify first.
• Go to the source. If you’re unsure whether FACEIT or Steam needs something from you, open the official website or app yourself rather than following links from Discord, messages, or ads.
• Add another layer of protection. Scam sites often look legitimate. Malwarebytes Browser Guard can help block known phishing pages and other online scams before you enter your username and password.
  

If you already entered your details

Change your Steam password immediately, make sure Steam Guard is enabled, and sign out of all other devices. Check your Steam API key settings and remove any key you don’t recognize. Change the password anywhere else you reused it and review your account for unauthorized trades or purchases.

Why this scam works

This scam works because it doesn’t look like a scam. The branding is convincing, the story makes sense, and even the Steam login window appears legitimate.

Most people know to check the address bar before entering a password. Browser-in-the-Browser attacks are designed to defeat that habit. Because the fake Steam window is built into the page itself, the criminals can make its address bar say whatever they want, including steamcommunity.com.

The safest approach is to be suspicious of any login window that appears inside another website. If you’re unsure, close the page and sign in to Steam the way you normally would, through the official app or by typing the address yourself.

That small pause, that refusal to take the convenient shortcut a page is pushing you toward, is all it takes to keep your account yours.

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 →

Protect enterprise AI agents from supply chain risks by auditing third-party skills for hidden vulnerabilities and multi-stage attack chains.

The post Trust No Skill: Integrity Verification for AI Agent Supply Chains appeared first on Unit 42.

Short-form video platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels have become the latest way cybercriminals spread malware.

We’ve already seen attackers move away from traditional phishing emails and toward tactics that trick people into installing malware themselves. Now they’re being lured with slick social media videos that promise free Spotify Premium, free Windows activation, or free Microsoft Office, but instead leave people with infostealers on their Windows devices.

Researchers at ReversingLabs uncovered two active campaigns that use short videos to trick users into running dangerous PowerShell commands or visiting malicious download sites. Similar campaigns have been reported by other researchers and national cybersecurity agencies, suggesting a growing trend: Cybercriminals are learning how to use social media algorithms just as effectively as marketers.

In true social media fashion, the videos on platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels claim to solve a problem you didn’t know you had. The catch is that following the instructions delivers malware to your device.

How the scam works

The first campaign looks deceptively professional.

Accounts with names like “windows.tips” or “windows.insights” use Windows-style branding and post polished tutorial videos that resemble genuine tech support content. The videos are tagged with Windows and Office-related keywords so they appear alongside legitimate troubleshooting and tips content.

The videos promise to unlock Spotify Premium, Microsoft Office, or Windows for free. Viewers are then guided through step-by-step instructions that include opening Powershell, a legitimate Windows admin tool, and pasting in commands. Those commands download and run malware, much like the ClickFix scams we’ve covered before.

The malware was identified as Vidar, an infostealer designed to steal sensitive informtion from infected devices. Vidar commonly targets:

• Saved browser passwords
• Autofill data
• Browser cookies
• Cryptocurrency wallets
• Two-factor authentication (2FA) data
• TOR browser data

The stolen information is then sent back to servers controlled by the attackers.

How to stay safe

Research into similar TikTok-based attacks shows these scripts commonly add exclusions to Windows Defender, making it harder for security software to detect future malicious activity.

Fortunately, there are  a few simple ways to protect yourself:  

• Only download software from official vendor websites.  
• Be skeptical of “free”, cracked, or unofficial versions of paid software. 
• Don’t follow instructions on a webpage without thinking them through, especially if the page asks you to run commands on your device or copy and paste code. Many ClickFix pages use countdowns, fake user counters, or other pressure tactics to make you act quickly.
• Check that downloaded files match what you expected to download.
• Verify a file’s publisher and digital signature before you run it. On Windows, you can usually check this by right-clicking the file, selecting Properties > Digital Signatures. Keep in mind that a valid signature does not guarantee a file is safe, but missing or suspicious signatures are often a red flag. 
• Use a real-time, up-to-date anti-malware solution to block malware like infostealers before it runs.

Pro tip: If you’re unsure whether a video, message, or website is legitimate, you can ask Malwarebytes Scam Guard about it. It can help identify suspicious content and advise you on what to do next.

Image courtesy of ReversingLabs

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.

Short-form video platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels have become the latest way cybercriminals spread malware.

We’ve already seen attackers move away from traditional phishing emails and toward tactics that trick people into installing malware themselves. Now they’re being lured with slick social media videos that promise free Spotify Premium, free Windows activation, or free Microsoft Office, but instead leave people with infostealers on their Windows devices.

Researchers at ReversingLabs uncovered two active campaigns that use short videos to trick users into running dangerous PowerShell commands or visiting malicious download sites. Similar campaigns have been reported by other researchers and national cybersecurity agencies, suggesting a growing trend: Cybercriminals are learning how to use social media algorithms just as effectively as marketers.

In true social media fashion, the videos on platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels claim to solve a problem you didn’t know you had. The catch is that following the instructions delivers malware to your device.

How the scam works

The first campaign looks deceptively professional.

Accounts with names like “windows.tips” or “windows.insights” use Windows-style branding and post polished tutorial videos that resemble genuine tech support content. The videos are tagged with Windows and Office-related keywords so they appear alongside legitimate troubleshooting and tips content.

The videos promise to unlock Spotify Premium, Microsoft Office, or Windows for free. Viewers are then guided through step-by-step instructions that include opening Powershell, a legitimate Windows admin tool, and pasting in commands. Those commands download and run malware, much like the ClickFix scams we’ve covered before.

The malware was identified as Vidar, an infostealer designed to steal sensitive informtion from infected devices. Vidar commonly targets:

• Saved browser passwords
• Autofill data
• Browser cookies
• Cryptocurrency wallets
• Two-factor authentication (2FA) data
• TOR browser data

The stolen information is then sent back to servers controlled by the attackers.

How to stay safe

Research into similar TikTok-based attacks shows these scripts commonly add exclusions to Windows Defender, making it harder for security software to detect future malicious activity.

Fortunately, there are  a few simple ways to protect yourself:  

• Only download software from official vendor websites.  
• Be skeptical of “free”, cracked, or unofficial versions of paid software. 
• Don’t follow instructions on a webpage without thinking them through, especially if the page asks you to run commands on your device or copy and paste code. Many ClickFix pages use countdowns, fake user counters, or other pressure tactics to make you act quickly.
• Check that downloaded files match what you expected to download.
• Verify a file’s publisher and digital signature before you run it. On Windows, you can usually check this by right-clicking the file, selecting Properties > Digital Signatures. Keep in mind that a valid signature does not guarantee a file is safe, but missing or suspicious signatures are often a red flag. 
• Use a real-time, up-to-date anti-malware solution to block malware like infostealers before it runs.

Pro tip: If you’re unsure whether a video, message, or website is legitimate, you can ask Malwarebytes Scam Guard about it. It can help identify suspicious content and advise you on what to do next.

Image courtesy of ReversingLabs

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.

What would you trade for a technology that can do almost anything? For many people, the answer is clear: Everything they thought they could trust.

In a few, short years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools have granted people unfettered access to easier writing, faster image generation, quicker coding, and near-instantaneous answers, advice, and information—advantages they value and want. But the same tools that can spruce up a dating profile or reimagine an old photograph can also manipulate the broader world online, and people are noticing.

According to new research from Malwarebytes, 88% of people said it’s becoming harder to tell what content online is genuinely human or real, with 84% saying that “convincing video evidence” no longer feels like proof. Further, 85% said it can be hard to tell scams apart from the real thing—a major uptick from the 66% who said the same thing last year.

These are the first signs of AI’s counterfeit world. Replete with fake websites, fake products, fake videos, fake pictures, fake voices, and even fake people, it is threatening to swallow the web.

The latest report from Malwarebytes, “Face value: How AI is reshaping trust, identity, and scams” exposes the hidden cost of AI on the public: an excess of fraud that is dismantling trust in reality and in one another.

The damage arrives in large moments and small, from the US parent who said they “received a voicemail that sounded exactly like my son’s voice, saying he was in trouble and needed money for legal fees,” to the two entirely unrelated respondents fooled by the same AI-generated video of rabbits bouncing on a trampoline, to the individual worried about “my grandfather showing me AI slop and he thought it was real.”

For this research, Malwarebytes surveyed 1,500 adults aged 18 and older across the US, UK, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland about their uses, feelings, and concerns regarding AI. The sample was equally split for gender with a spread of ages, geographical regions, and race groups, and weighted to provide a balanced view.

The complete findings can be found in the full report:

Here are some of the key takeaways and findings:

• 88% said it’s becoming harder to tell what content online is genuinely human or real
• 84% said convincing video evidence no longer feels like proof 
• 85% of people said it’s hard to tell a scam from the real thing (up from 66% last year)
• 50% have experienced some form of AI fraud or scam, such as being misled by AI-generated photos of products or receiving a highly personalized scam message
• 19% have specifically experienced some form of AI-driven identity harm, including the 10% who have had someone use AI to generate sexually explicit content of them without permission
• 81% fear someone stealing their family’s likeness, yet only 13% have created a family codeword to guard against it
• 67% worry about voice cloning, yet only 19% have turned off voicemail recordings to prevent it
• 45% say it’s okay to use AI for personal emotional tasks (like writing wedding vows or a eulogy)
• 34% say it’s okay to use AI to help create or improve a dating profile
• One in three self-avowed daily users of AI said it’s okay to generate explicit images of someone without their consent 

Defeat would be the wrong lesson to take from all this. It is true now that the internet requires assistance, but there are plenty of safe places to seek help.

While Malwarebytes works to provide new tools, we’d like to remind both the AI anxious and the eager about the first rule of the internet: Remember the human. People’s voices, bodies, choices, and agency belong to them and them alone. 

As for every fake video, product, website, and image, understand that there’s help. No one needs to navigate an artificial internet alone. Whether through scam detection, identity protection, and simple awareness, people have more options than they may realize.

What would you trade for a technology that can do almost anything? For many people, the answer is clear: Everything they thought they could trust.

In a few, short years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools have granted people unfettered access to easier writing, faster image generation, quicker coding, and near-instantaneous answers, advice, and information—advantages they value and want. But the same tools that can spruce up a dating profile or reimagine an old photograph can also manipulate the broader world online, and people are noticing.

According to new research from Malwarebytes, 88% of people said it’s becoming harder to tell what content online is genuinely human or real, with 84% saying that “convincing video evidence” no longer feels like proof. Further, 85% said it can be hard to tell scams apart from the real thing—a major uptick from the 66% who said the same thing last year.

These are the first signs of AI’s counterfeit world. Replete with fake websites, fake products, fake videos, fake pictures, fake voices, and even fake people, it is threatening to swallow the web.

The latest report from Malwarebytes, “Face value: How AI is reshaping trust, identity, and scams” exposes the hidden cost of AI on the public: an excess of fraud that is dismantling trust in reality and in one another.

The damage arrives in large moments and small, from the US parent who said they “received a voicemail that sounded exactly like my son’s voice, saying he was in trouble and needed money for legal fees,” to the two entirely unrelated respondents fooled by the same AI-generated video of rabbits bouncing on a trampoline, to the individual worried about “my grandfather showing me AI slop and he thought it was real.”

For this research, Malwarebytes surveyed 1,500 adults aged 18 and older across the US, UK, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland about their uses, feelings, and concerns regarding AI. The sample was equally split for gender with a spread of ages, geographical regions, and race groups, and weighted to provide a balanced view.

The complete findings can be found in the full report:

Here are some of the key takeaways and findings:

• 88% said it’s becoming harder to tell what content online is genuinely human or real
• 84% said convincing video evidence no longer feels like proof 
• 85% of people said it’s hard to tell a scam from the real thing (up from 66% last year)
• 50% have experienced some form of AI fraud or scam, such as being misled by AI-generated photos of products or receiving a highly personalized scam message
• 19% have specifically experienced some form of AI-driven identity harm, including the 10% who have had someone use AI to generate sexually explicit content of them without permission
• 81% fear someone stealing their family’s likeness, yet only 13% have created a family codeword to guard against it
• 67% worry about voice cloning, yet only 19% have turned off voicemail recordings to prevent it
• 45% say it’s okay to use AI for personal emotional tasks (like writing wedding vows or a eulogy)
• 34% say it’s okay to use AI to help create or improve a dating profile
• One in three self-avowed daily users of AI said it’s okay to generate explicit images of someone without their consent 

Defeat would be the wrong lesson to take from all this. It is true now that the internet requires assistance, but there are plenty of safe places to seek help.

While Malwarebytes works to provide new tools, we’d like to remind both the AI anxious and the eager about the first rule of the internet: Remember the human. People’s voices, bodies, choices, and agency belong to them and them alone. 

As for every fake video, product, website, and image, understand that there’s help. No one needs to navigate an artificial internet alone. Whether through scam detection, identity protection, and simple awareness, people have more options than they may realize.

The 2025 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Internet Crime Report shows that Americans reported $893,346,472 in AI‑related scam losses.

Those losses stem from 22,364 AI-related complaints. And these figures represent only the reported losses, which may well be the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

The main drivers behind the rise in AI-powered scams are voice cloning, deepfake images and videos, and AI‑generated scripts. These tools have supercharged classic fraud schemes such as romance scams, kidnapping and extortion calls, fake influencers, and government impersonation.

Michael Machtinger, deputy assistant director of the FBI Cyber Division, told the Wall Street Journal:

“AI-created fraudulent communications can look very official and very legitimate to even the most trained individuals.”

The FBI and financial institutions recommend verifying identities via official contact channels. One of their biggest concerns is government impersonation scams, which have evolved from crude IRS gift‑card phone calls into sophisticated, multi‑channel operations that combine spoofed caller ID, stolen agency logos, and AI‑generated audio and video of public officials.

This report, and others like it, shows how AI is being weaponized to automate research on victims, generate convincing scripts, and create highly believable deepfake personas at scale.

AI is also increasingly used in business email compromise (BEC), romance scams, and impersonation fraud. In BEC cases involving AI, losses have already reached tens of millions of dollars for businesses alone.

For a broader look at why AI is simultaneously fueling scams like these and becoming indispensable to defending against them, see my article AI: Threat, tool, or both?

It explains how both defenders and criminals use AI to find vulnerabilities, and why security vendors increasingly rely on AI to process vast amounts of telemetry, detect anomalies, and keep pace with threats that “no longer move at human speed.”

How to stay safe

Consumer protection agencies have documented a growing list of the ways scammers are using AI to try to rip people off. The main problem is that we can no longer take it at face value that the person we’re talking to is who they claim to be.

Government agencies and financial institutions recommend that you:

• Be skeptical of urgent payment demands, especially those involving cryptocurrency or gift cards
• Limit the amount of voice and video content you share publicly, as it can be reused by scammers
• Report incidents quickly to your bank(s) and IC3.gov

Pro tip: Malwarebytes Scam Guard can help you determine whether a message is a scam and guide you through the next steps.

Something feel off? Check it before you click.  

Malwarebytes Scam Guard helps you analyze suspicious links, texts, and screenshots instantly.  

Available with Malwarebytes Premium Security for all your devices, and in the Malwarebytes app for iOS and Android.  

Try it free → 

The 2025 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Internet Crime Report shows that Americans reported $893,346,472 in AI‑related scam losses.

Those losses stem from 22,364 AI-related complaints. And these figures represent only the reported losses, which may well be the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

The main drivers behind the rise in AI-powered scams are voice cloning, deepfake images and videos, and AI‑generated scripts. These tools have supercharged classic fraud schemes such as romance scams, kidnapping and extortion calls, fake influencers, and government impersonation.

Michael Machtinger, deputy assistant director of the FBI Cyber Division, told the Wall Street Journal:

“AI-created fraudulent communications can look very official and very legitimate to even the most trained individuals.”

The FBI and financial institutions recommend verifying identities via official contact channels. One of their biggest concerns is government impersonation scams, which have evolved from crude IRS gift‑card phone calls into sophisticated, multi‑channel operations that combine spoofed caller ID, stolen agency logos, and AI‑generated audio and video of public officials.

This report, and others like it, shows how AI is being weaponized to automate research on victims, generate convincing scripts, and create highly believable deepfake personas at scale.

AI is also increasingly used in business email compromise (BEC), romance scams, and impersonation fraud. In BEC cases involving AI, losses have already reached tens of millions of dollars for businesses alone.

For a broader look at why AI is simultaneously fueling scams like these and becoming indispensable to defending against them, see my article AI: Threat, tool, or both?

It explains how both defenders and criminals use AI to find vulnerabilities, and why security vendors increasingly rely on AI to process vast amounts of telemetry, detect anomalies, and keep pace with threats that “no longer move at human speed.”

How to stay safe

Consumer protection agencies have documented a growing list of the ways scammers are using AI to try to rip people off. The main problem is that we can no longer take it at face value that the person we’re talking to is who they claim to be.

Government agencies and financial institutions recommend that you:

• Be skeptical of urgent payment demands, especially those involving cryptocurrency or gift cards
• Limit the amount of voice and video content you share publicly, as it can be reused by scammers
• Report incidents quickly to your bank(s) and IC3.gov

Pro tip: Malwarebytes Scam Guard can help you determine whether a message is a scam and guide you through the next steps.

Something feel off? Check it before you click.  

Malwarebytes Scam Guard helps you analyze suspicious links, texts, and screenshots instantly.  

Available with Malwarebytes Premium Security for all your devices, and in the Malwarebytes app for iOS and Android.  

Try it free → 

Planning a holiday should be exciting, fun, and not a cybersecurity risk. But booking flights, hotels, and rental properties often means sharing sensitive personal and financial information across multiple platforms. Combined with frequent travel scams and recurring data breaches in the travel and hospitality sector, it creates plenty of opportunities for criminals.

This guide covers the most common risks when making travel reservations and explains how to avoid them. Save the adventure for your destination.

Travel bookings combine high-value payments with urgency and emotional decision-making. Attackers love that for several reasons:

• Large upfront payments make scams profitable.
• Booking confirmations often contain valuable personal data, such as names, travel dates, contact details, and sometimes passport information.
• Travelers are more likely to act quickly and overlook red flags.
• Travel and hospitality companies are frequent breach targets due to complex IT environments and third-party integrations.

Recent years have seen repeated breaches involving hotel chains, booking platforms, cruise operators, and airlines, exposing everything from email addresses to passport numbers.

Common travel-related scams

Fake booking websites

Attackers create convincing clones of airline, hotel, and travel booking websites, often promoted through online ads or SEO poisoning (manipulating search engine results). Victims enter payment details, receive fake confirmations, and only discover the fraud later.

Last year we uncovered a campaign using fake Booking.com websites that tricked visitors into infecting their own devices with a Remote Access Trojan (RAT).

Phishing messages about reservation problems

Emails, texts, or messaging app notifications may claim there’s a problem with your booking and urge you to click a link, open an attachment, or call a number. The scammers often impersonate legitimate travel brands and may include real stolen data from previous breaches.

Earlier this year, we wrote about a Booking.com breach that provided scammers with a lot of useful information that could make their messages appear more convincing.

Vacation rental fraud

Scammers post fake listings or hijack legitimate ones on rental platforms. They typically encourage off-platform communication or payments to avoid built-in protections.

In 2024, one of our researchers encountered exactly this type of scam. A supposedly legitimate Airbnb listing in Amsterdam turned out to be fake, and the scammer sent an email claiming to be from TripAdvisor in an attempt to collect payment details.

“Too good to be true” deals

Deep discounts on flights or accommodation are used to lure victims into paying for offers that don’t exist.

If a deal seems unusually generous, look for the catch. Be especially cautious when advertisers claim the offer will end very soon. Creating urgency is one of the oldest tricks in the scammer playbook.

Scam or legit? Scam Guard knows.

TRY IT NOW

Booking.com impersonation scams

Booking.com has become an increasingly popular brand for scammers to impersonate. According to our—anonymized—Scam Guard data, we’ve recently seen:

• Fake cashback emails promising a €435 refund that lead to phishing websites
• In-app messages requesting an additional reservation fee
• Emails containing PDF attachments that require a “secure viewer,” which turns out to be malware
• WhatsApp messages claiming credit card details are missing and directing users to phishing sites
• Text messages linking to fake Booking.com pages and demanding card verification before a deadline

The number of scams impersonating Booking.com has been growing. Since the breach disclosed in April, Scam Guard data shows a 56% increase in Booking.com-related scams compared to the previous period, with weekly volume up consistently across five straight weeks.

How to book travel safely

There are a few simple things that can dramatically reduce your risk:

• Use secure payment methods. Credit cards offer better fraud protection than debit cards or bank transfers. Never pay anyone asking for payment in cryptocurrencies or gift cards.
• Stick to trusted platforms. Even though these are not guaranteed to be safe, using them is better than gambling on an unknown platform.
• Don’t click on sponsored search results. I cannot say this often enough.
• Verify the existence of the booked accommodation through other channels.
• Treat requests to move communication or payment to another platform as suspicious.
• Consider urgent language, unexpected attachments, and mismatched sender domains as red flags.
• Downloads needed to open an attachment are not to be trusted. These downloads often turn out to be malware. To block and remove malware, use an up-to-date, real-time anti-malware solution.

Pro tip: Malwarebytes Browser Guard will block known phishing websites and can even recognize suspicious websites that are not in our database yet.

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.

Planning a holiday should be exciting, fun, and not a cybersecurity risk. But booking flights, hotels, and rental properties often means sharing sensitive personal and financial information across multiple platforms. Combined with frequent travel scams and recurring data breaches in the travel and hospitality sector, it creates plenty of opportunities for criminals.

This guide covers the most common risks when making travel reservations and explains how to avoid them. Save the adventure for your destination.

Travel bookings combine high-value payments with urgency and emotional decision-making. Attackers love that for several reasons:

• Large upfront payments make scams profitable.
• Booking confirmations often contain valuable personal data, such as names, travel dates, contact details, and sometimes passport information.
• Travelers are more likely to act quickly and overlook red flags.
• Travel and hospitality companies are frequent breach targets due to complex IT environments and third-party integrations.

Recent years have seen repeated breaches involving hotel chains, booking platforms, cruise operators, and airlines, exposing everything from email addresses to passport numbers.

Common travel-related scams

Fake booking websites

Attackers create convincing clones of airline, hotel, and travel booking websites, often promoted through online ads or SEO poisoning (manipulating search engine results). Victims enter payment details, receive fake confirmations, and only discover the fraud later.

Last year we uncovered a campaign using fake Booking.com websites that tricked visitors into infecting their own devices with a Remote Access Trojan (RAT).

Phishing messages about reservation problems

Emails, texts, or messaging app notifications may claim there’s a problem with your booking and urge you to click a link, open an attachment, or call a number. The scammers often impersonate legitimate travel brands and may include real stolen data from previous breaches.

Earlier this year, we wrote about a Booking.com breach that provided scammers with a lot of useful information that could make their messages appear more convincing.

Vacation rental fraud

Scammers post fake listings or hijack legitimate ones on rental platforms. They typically encourage off-platform communication or payments to avoid built-in protections.

In 2024, one of our researchers encountered exactly this type of scam. A supposedly legitimate Airbnb listing in Amsterdam turned out to be fake, and the scammer sent an email claiming to be from TripAdvisor in an attempt to collect payment details.

“Too good to be true” deals

Deep discounts on flights or accommodation are used to lure victims into paying for offers that don’t exist.

If a deal seems unusually generous, look for the catch. Be especially cautious when advertisers claim the offer will end very soon. Creating urgency is one of the oldest tricks in the scammer playbook.

Scam or legit? Scam Guard knows.

TRY IT NOW

Booking.com impersonation scams

Booking.com has become an increasingly popular brand for scammers to impersonate. According to our—anonymized—Scam Guard data, we’ve recently seen:

• Fake cashback emails promising a €435 refund that lead to phishing websites
• In-app messages requesting an additional reservation fee
• Emails containing PDF attachments that require a “secure viewer,” which turns out to be malware
• WhatsApp messages claiming credit card details are missing and directing users to phishing sites
• Text messages linking to fake Booking.com pages and demanding card verification before a deadline

The number of scams impersonating Booking.com has been growing. Since the breach disclosed in April, Scam Guard data shows a 56% increase in Booking.com-related scams compared to the previous period, with weekly volume up consistently across five straight weeks.

How to book travel safely

There are a few simple things that can dramatically reduce your risk:

• Use secure payment methods. Credit cards offer better fraud protection than debit cards or bank transfers. Never pay anyone asking for payment in cryptocurrencies or gift cards.
• Stick to trusted platforms. Even though these are not guaranteed to be safe, using them is better than gambling on an unknown platform.
• Don’t click on sponsored search results. I cannot say this often enough.
• Verify the existence of the booked accommodation through other channels.
• Treat requests to move communication or payment to another platform as suspicious.
• Consider urgent language, unexpected attachments, and mismatched sender domains as red flags.
• Downloads needed to open an attachment are not to be trusted. These downloads often turn out to be malware. To block and remove malware, use an up-to-date, real-time anti-malware solution.

Pro tip: Malwarebytes Browser Guard will block known phishing websites and can even recognize suspicious websites that are not in our database yet.

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.