Archive for author: makoadmin

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs:

• Apple ID scam leads to $27,000 in-person theft of Ohio man
• OpenAI kills “short-lived experiment” where ChatGPT chats could be found on Google
• Trump Administration and Big Tech want you to share your health data
• Prison visitor details shared with all inmates at correctional facility
• That seemingly innocent text is probably a scam
• VPN use rises following Online Safety Act’s age verification controls
• Apple patches multiple vulnerabilities in iOS and iPadOS. Update now!
• Tea Dating Advice app has users’ private messages disclosed
• Allianz Life says majority of 1.4 million US customers’ info breached
• How the FBI got everything it wanted (re-air) (Lock and Code S06E15)

Stay safe!

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.

You’ve probably heard about people scamming from halfway around the world, but sometimes they turn up at your door.

That’s what happened in May, when 67 year-old Robert Wise of Ohio received a text telling him that his Apple ID had been compromised. It had been used at an Apple store for a $213 purchase, the text message said.

After calling the number on the phone, a man identifying himself as John Cooper said that thieves had racked up a total of $27,000 in charges in his name. Unless Wise withdrew $27,000 from his account immediately, it would be drained, the man said.

As you’ve probably already guessed, there had been no $27,000 theft. At least, not yet. According to local news reports, the man at the other end of the line tried to get Wise to deposit the money into a bitcoin machine to send him the funds.

When Wise tried and failed to do that, the crook said he’d send someone to collect the money in person. This is where 42 year-old Liwei Zhang turned up at the victim’s door and Wise handed the money over.

All might have been well save for the thief’s greed. Zhang arranged to come back and collect more money from Wise, who by this time had finally grown suspicious and called the sheriff. The sheriff told Wise to keep the criminal engaged and they managed to catch the thief at the scene.

Zhang, a Chinese national who was in the country on a business visa, now faces charges of theft, identity fraud and telecommunications fraud. He told law enforcement officers that he was just a middleman, and “felt that he was doing this revolving criminal activity”.

This isn’t an isolated case. Last month, officers in Kentucky arrested a Canadian citizen, Jia Hua Liu. Liu, who was in the US, had targeted multiple elderly victims with scams and then turned up at their homes to collect money. He had collected over $300,000 in total.

Last year, 21 year-old Tejaskumar Patel was arrested after collecting gold bars from a Florida resident. The victim, a retired marine, had been told he needed to pay to free himself from arrest warrants (which were fake). Officers only caught Patel after coming back for more gold, because the victim had called the police.

There are plenty of cases like these. Scamming this way is a reliable last resort for thieves because it will often be easier to collect cash personally from non-tech-savvy people rather than getting them to successfully make a bitcoin transaction.

However, the scammers also place themselves in great personal danger if a victim gets suspicious. Especially if they’re greedy enough to push their luck and come back for more.

Protecting yourself is simple:

• Be on the lookout for telltale signs that a text is a scam. These include slight language errors and a sense of urgency.
• Don’t respond directly to any text messages telling you about scams or making legal threats.
• If the texts have you worried, verify them independently by calling the organization they’re supposed to be from. Use a number obtained independently to ensure you’re calling the right place, and don’t use the number in the text. If the organization can’t verify a text, it’s a scam.
• Never send money to a stranger or give them money in person. No legitimate organization should ever ask for cash at the door, unless they’re wearing Girl Scout vests and come bearing cookies. If you’re spending $27,000 on Girl Scout cookies, you have bigger problems.
• If you’re truly stumped about a text message and want some immediate, AI-assisted help, 24/7, try Malwarebytes Scam Guard for free.

Unfortunately, many elderly victims are more vulnerable to scams, as data shows, and may not heed such advice. That’s why it’s important to check in regularly with elderly friends or family to ensure that they aren’t involved in any such transactions.

Liu failed to scam $70,000 from some potential victims because their family members had found out what was going on and intervened. When scams targeting the elderly are so common, it’s important that someone has their back.

We don’t just report on scans—we help detect them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. If something looks dodgy to you, check if it’s a scam using Malwarebytes Scam Guard, a feature of our mobile protection products. Submit a screenshot, paste suspicious content, or share a text or phone number, and we’ll tell you if it’s a scam or legit. Download Malwarebytes Mobile Security for iOS or Android and try it today!

A little-known ChatGPT “feature” is now gone. It could be a good thing.

On X, OpenAI Chief Information Security Officer Dane Stuckey announced that OpenAI “removed a feature from ChatGPT that allowed users to make their conversations discoverable by search engines, such as Google.” Stuckey called the whole thing a “short-lived experiment to help people discover useful conversations.”

The feature was entirely opt-in, meaning users had to make certain selections to participate, including “picking a chat to share, then by clicking a checkbox for it to be shared with search engines.”

As Stuckey explained for why the company rolled back the experiment:

Ultimately we think this feature introduced too many opportunities for folks to accidentally share things they didn’t intend to, so we’re removing the option. We’re also working to remove indexed content from the relevant search engines. This change is rolling out to all users through tomorrow morning.

Security and privacy are paramount for us, and we’ll keep working to maximally reflect that in our products and features.”

I was unable to find out when the option was officially introduced, which, I guess, might be a reason for the following uproar, as there was no big announcement.

But, such an announcement might have have helped users make informed decisions. The absence of this guidance or of any firm information about the feature during its short-lived life also highlights the way Artificial Intelligence (AI) companies view their users. As a commenter said:

“The friction for sharing potential private information should be greater than a checkbox or not exist at all.”

Many users are conditioned to check checkboxes before being able to use something new, and they don’t read EULAs and other warnings. They just rapidly tick every box they think they need to tick to get to the result they have in mind as fast as possible.

Even though this attempt might have had the right intention, we are reminded of other leaked private conversations, whether they were caused by a bug, or not a bug. Either way, it does not help efforts to get the general public to trust AI chatbots.

Many people confide deeply personal secrets to chatbots and seek support for issues that could typically require hours of professional counseling.

OpenAI removed the option that allowed conversations with ChatGPT to be indexed, so newly shared chats will not appear in search results going forward. Still, OpenAI warns that some conversations already indexed may remain visible temporarily because of search engine caching, even as they work to have this content removed.

Tips to use AI chatbots safer

Besides the obvious (but often ignored) advice of reading any warnings and privacy policies before using these apps, there are some additional precautions and habits that can help keep your personal conversations private:

• Don’t share without knowing all the consequences and implications.
• Anonymize your input. Don’t use (real) names or other Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in your conversations.
• Don’t share sensitive work or client data.
• Use up-to-date active anti-malware protection.
• Limit the data you provide and delete it when possible.

In short, trust an AI chatbot with your private info the same way you would trust a “blabbermouth”—not a whole lot.

We don’t just report on threats – we help protect your social media

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your social media accounts by using Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection.

The Everglades Correctional Institution (ECI) in Miami-Dade County has leaked the names, email addresses, and telephone numbers of visitors to the facility to every inmate.

The inmates received an email last week sent by a staff member that included the personal information of the visitors. Inmates can access their emails through secure tablets or kiosks at the facility. It is unclear yet whether it was an accidental or deliberate leak.

Those affected by this data breach feel frightened and infuriated, especially the women. That reaction is perfectly understandable: Imagine discovering that someone shared your contact details with every inmate in a correctional institution.

Madeline Donate, who regularly visits her husband at the prison, told the Florida Phoenix:

“It’s kind of disturbing when you think about it. The privacy aspect of this is concerning. This is how other inmates get information and can sometimes extort family members and things like that. It’s concerning.”

Another visitor, Jan Thompson, spoke of her fears:

“What if there’s some inmate that doesn’t like another inmate? And he tells his family, ‘Okay, here’s his wife’s phone number. Call her and tell her if she doesn’t pay and put $500 on my book, I’m going to have her husband stabbed and killed.’ What’s stopping them from doing that?”

The way this came about demands an explanation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a policy was introduced where visitors had to fill out an application form every time they intend to visit. Before the introduction of that policy, a visitor—once approved– could just show up during visitation hours. While the policy made sense at the time, the underlying protocols have long been discarded, but the policy was left in place.

Patrice Kelly says she had already removed most of her digital footprint from the internet after having a problem with a stalker in her immediate past. Now her personal contact information has been released to every other inmate at ECI.

She stated:

“Unfortunately, people in Florida that are at that institution now have my information. I don’t live in Florida anymore, so that’s a good thing. It only takes somebody saying, this is where this person lives.”

Denise Rock, executive director of the prisoner advocacy group Florida Cares, said her organization’s main concern is not with the institution but the visitation process, which she said is duplicative and led to the data breach.

“We urge the department to discontinue requiring already-approved visitors to register and release their private information each time they do so.”

The Florida Department of Corrections has not commented publicly about the incident.

Advice

Remaining cautious and proactive helps limit the risk of further exposure or harm resulting from this data breach. When additional details become available about how the breach occurred or what steps the Department of Corrections is taking, there might be more tailored recommendations available.

Some tips that might be helpful:

• Be cautious when receiving any unexpected communications (calls, messages, emails) from unknown numbers or individuals who reference your personal connection to an incarcerated person. Do not engage in conversations before confirming the source through other channels.
• If you receive any harassment, threats, or inappropriate contact from current or former inmates, notify prison authorities immediately and consider reporting to the police.
• Reach out to the Florida Department of Corrections to request removal or restriction of your contact details from visitation records where feasible, and ask what steps they are taking to prevent further incidents.
• Do not share further personal information. Avoid sharing additional personal details publicly on social media or online directories that could be linked to your exposed information. You can check what information is already out there about you by using our free Digital Footprint Scanner.

We don’t just report on threats – we help safeguard your entire digital identity

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your—and your family’s—personal information by using identity protection.

US President Donald Trump announced a loose plan Wednesday to allow Americans to voluntarily upload and port their medical records across hospitals, clinics, technology companies, and health apps, with broad participation from Google, Apple, OpenAI, Amazon, and more.

While the system could help Americans connect disparate pieces of health data currently siloed behind separate companies and healthcare providers, some privacy experts have warned that the data’s segmentation is in fact paramount to its privacy.

“[This] private health tracking system w/ Big Tech should worry all Americans,” said Georgetown University professor Lawrence Gostin, who also serves as the Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law.

“There are few privacy safeguards. Medical records are personal [and] intimate. Health records might be shared with insurers, businesses, ICE, [and] law enforcement.”

But, according to the Trump Administration, being able to more easily share this data is a boon to Americans who want to, say, directly hand their personal Apple Health data to their doctor, or approve certain weight loss providers, like Noom, to obtain access to their medical records.

A total of 60 companies have signed onto the effort, ranging from traditional healthcare insurers such as UnitedHealth to artificial intelligence developers such as Anthropic and OpenAI. The latter group’s participation is part of the Trump Administration’s efforts to roll out AI chatbots that can steer Americans into healthier recommendations for daily living—a goal pushed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy following a recent visit to Indonesia.

“There are other apps in Indonesia that allow you to choose good foods when you go to the grocery store and turn your app on on your phone and get information,” Kennedy said at a televised event Wednesday. “Now, if you have your medical records, you can get personalized advice, and that allows you to get better advice about a better alternative.”

Still, the prospect of increasing the accessibility of healthcare data creates new risks.

First, while it is unknown if participating companies can store a person’s data, their access to the new database could make them highly attractive targets for cybercriminals who want to abuse that access to ransack Americans’ sensitive information. Already, third-party companies that support healthcare providers are at high risk for cyberattacks—a reality that nearly gridlocked two ambulance operators after a shared technology provider was attacked.

Further, it’s far too common for companies that already handle medical data to expose private information, like when a radiological imaging provider failed to protect tens of thousands of patient files.  

Second, there is also the question about whether the data will be used in new, privacy-invasive ways to track Americans. Already, Americans’ browsing habits, online searches, clicks, scrolls, opened emails, and shopping wish lists are mined for advertising revenue. As warned by Jeff Chester, executive director for the Center for Digital Democracy in speaking with the AP:

“This scheme is an open door for the further use and monetization of sensitive and personal health information.”

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.

A special thanks to all the people at Malwarebytes and ThreatDown for sharing the text messages they received from scammers.

Many of us have received texts like these. Often super short, some flirty, some with a business tone, or sometimes just a simple ‘hello.’

You don’t know the sender, and they look like an honest mistake. But they’re not. All the messages are carefully crafted to seem plausible—so you don’t immediately feel suspicious—and short—to trigger your curiosity.

The intention of these messages are to get you to be confused enough that you will reply, perhaps by saying they have the wrong number.

Here are some of the messages our team has received recently:

1. The one-word text

2. The “who are you again?” text

3. The “tempting” text

Sometimes these involve inviting you for fun activities on the weekend, like a BBQ or some beach time. Sometimes, it’s just a dinner suggestion:

4. The business text

5. The “OMG i just woke up” text

These are just some examples, but we’ve seen so many more.

As soon as you reply, the scammer will initiate a friendly conversation. Their end goal will be to gain your trust and develop the relationship into a costly romance or investment scam.

From their end at least, some of my co-workers told them to go phish elsewhere.

However funny, we don’t recommend engaging with scammers in this or any other way. Here’s why:

Why you should never respond

• Responding confirms your number is active.
• It flags you as someone who reads texts and might engage.
• The scammer may sell or share your number.
• Some groups build long-term “mark profiles” for future scams. Even though you think you’re only providing them with little to none information, scammers often track who replies, how they reply, and how easily they engage. That data becomes part of a “mark profile”, a digital dossier on you that might include your phone number, the time of response (which suggests your schedule or time zone), and any other information you share.

What you should do instead of replying

• Don’t reply, not even to be helpful. Don’t engage in conversation, even if they seem friendly.
• Never click on links.
• Block the number.
• Report the message to your carrier (In the US, most carriers support forwarding spam texts to 7726).
• Share examples (anonymized) to help others. One way to do this is to use Malwarebytes Scam Guard, which also helps you assess if a message is a scam or not.

We don’t just report on scans—we help detect them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. If something looks dodgy to you, check if it’s a scam using Malwarebytes Scam Guard, a feature of our mobile protection products. Submit a screenshot, paste suspicious content, or share a text or phone number, and we’ll tell you if it’s a scam or legit. Download Malwarebytes Mobile Security for iOS or Android and try it today!

As the UK’s Online Safety Act came into effect on Friday—along with its age verification controls—the use of virtual private network (VPN) services has skyrocketed by up to 20-fold across the region.

Top10VPN, which monitors VPN traffic around the world, spotted UK VPN traffic spiking 1,327% on July 25, compared to the daily average over the prior four weeks. The traffic didn’t slow down on the days following, either, increasing 1,.712% above the pre-July 25 baseline on July 26, and by almost 2,000% on July 27.

The Online Safety Act forces a variety of websites to verify a user’s age, ensuring they are 18 years old or over. This doesn’t just apply to the obvious porn sites, but to a broad array of other categories: social media, gaming, and even search. The content considered harmful under the bill isn’t just sexual either, but covers areas including suicide, self-harm, and content related to eating disorders. Sites that don’t comply risk fines or even bans in the UK.

The more stringent law means that simply checking a box saying you’re over 18 won’t cut it. Instead, the UK’s communications regulator OFCOM suggests several ways for sites to verify a person’s age:

• Using open banking information (where a person submits information from their bank that proves their age)
• Photo ID matching using facial recognition
• Proving your age to your mobile operator who then approves you on the site’s behalf
• Checking your credit card (only adult UK residents can get one)
• Analyzing your email to see if it’s likely to have been used in an adult situation (a mortgage application, say)
• Using digital identity services such as a digital ID wallet (the EU is working on one of these)
• Estimating a person’s age from a selfie.

OFCOM argues that all methods must be implemented in line with UK privacy law, but it’s understandable that adult users might consider this a privacy risk. It’s also likely that some minors will want to flout the rules and access content that the government doesn’t want them to, especially given the wide scope of the law. Both these reasons are likely why VPN activity has soared since the law kicked in.

When you browse the internet directly, your computer uses an IP address that your internet service provider gives you. The site you’re browsing can use that to determine what country you’re in. A VPN is a program that connects your internet browsing device to the VPN company’s computer. That computer then serves as your jumping-off point to the internet.

Because VPN providers have networks of these computers around the world, you can pretend to be in another country of your choosing when using a VPN, meaning people often use them to bypass censorship laws. As more countries have been restricting access to adult content, they have also become a tool for internet users to dodge age protection laws.

UK Science Secretary Peter Kyle downplayed the use of VPNs in a Guardian interview yesterday, arguing that “very few children” were seeking harmful content online. Yet according to OFCOM, 8% of children between eight and 14 in the UK access online porn every month. That figure increases to almost one in five boys in that age bracket.

Kyle insisted that the government had solved up to 90% of the problem. “That 10% that’s remaining, or whatever that percentage is? We’ll go figuring it out as we move forward,” he said.

Per Wired, the Proton VPN service tweeted that its UK signups surged over 1,400%. “Unlike previous surges, this one is sustained, and is significantly higher than when France lost access to adult content,” it added.

VPN service Windscribe also tweeted a graph showing what appeared to be a massive spike in daily sign-ups on July 25.

And AdGuard also reported a spike in traffic, “Website traffic from UK users has surged by more than 60%, with visits from Android devices more than doubling and iOS traffic up by nearly 100%,” it said. “VPN installs in the UK have also grown by 2.5 times, and we’re seeing a clear increase in traffic from keyword searches—a significant share of which is related to adult content.”

Kyle told the Guardian that he was not going to ban VPNs, but that he would be looking “very closely” at how they are being used.

Apple released a security update for iOS and iPadOS to patch multiple vulnerabilities, including one that could leak sensitive information when visiting a malicious website and one that allows an attacker to display false information in the address bar.

In total, 29 vulnerabilities were patched, most of them in WebKit, Apple’s web rendering engine that powers Safari and renders webpages in other apps.

The update is available for: iPhone XS and later, iPad Pro 13-inch, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 7th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later.

To check if you’re using the latest software version, go to Settings > General > Software Update. You want to be on iOS 18.6 or iPadOS 18.6, so update now if you’re not. It’s also worth turning on Automatic Updates if you haven’t already. You can do that on the same screen.

Apple has also released updates for macOS Sequoia 15.6, macOS Sonoma 14.7.7, macOS Ventura 13.7.7, watchOS 11.6, and tvOS 18.6.

Technical details

Here we will discuss some of the vulnerabilities that Apple patched in this update.

CVE-2025-31229: A logic issue might disclose your passcode by the VoiceOver reading it aloud. VoiceOver is a gesture-based screen reader which allows people to use an iPhone even if they can’t see the screen.

CVE-2025-43217: Devices may fail to display the privacy indicators when apps access the microphone or camera, which could prevent users from being notified about this usage.

CVE-2025-43227: Visiting a specially crafted malicious website can expose your sensitive information; while Apple has not specified the exact types, data handled by the browser (for example, cookies, authentication tokens, browsing history, and other personal information), could be at risk.

CVE-2025-43228: Visiting a malicious website may lead to address bar spoofing. “Address bar spoofing” is when a website tricks your web browser into showing a fake or misleading website address (URL) in the address bar, at the top of your browser window, instead of the website you’re actually visiting. This means what you see in the address bar looks like a trustworthy site (for example, your bank or a popular service), but in reality, you’re on a different, potentially dangerous site controlled by an attacker.

We don’t just report on phone security—we provide it

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your mobile devices by downloading Malwarebytes for iOS, and Malwarebytes for Android today.

Insurance company Allianz Life was breached, exposing the data of most of its 1.4 million American customers.

According to Allianz, an attacker gained access to a third-party, cloud-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system through social engineering. The company filed a data breach notification with the Attorney General of the US state of Maine on Friday July 25, 2025.

The incident reportedly took place on July 16, 2025 and was discovered one day later. According to a spokesperson:

“The threat actor was able to obtain personally identifiable data related to the majority of Allianz Life’s customers, financial professionals, and select Allianz Life employees, using a social engineering technique.”

Although the company did not disclose an exact number of affected people, the Allianz Life has 1.4 million customers in the US. Its parent company, Allianz, has more than 125 million customers worldwide.

Allianz Life did not disclose the exact CRM system involved. However, in June, Google warned about a ransomware group that was specializing in voice phishing (vishing) campaigns that are specifically designed to compromise organizations’ Salesforce instances for large-scale data theft and extortion.

Google tracks this group as UNC6040, which the cybersecurity community commonly calls “The Com.” The group called Scattered Spider likely is the most well-known entity associated with The Com. Earlier this month we reported that Scattered Spider breached Australia’s largest airline Qantas by gaining access to a third-party platform, utilizing social engineering.

If Scattered Spider was indeed behind the Allianz data breach, they will extort the company by threatening to release the acquired data or sell it to the highest bidder.

The data breach notification indicates that Allianz plans to start informing affected consumers as of August 1, 2025.

Protecting yourself after a data breach

There are some actions you can take if you are, or suspect you may have been, the victim of a data breach.

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

We don’t just report on threats – we help safeguard your entire digital identity

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your—and your family’s—personal information by using identity protection.

A few days after Tea Dating Advice discovered unauthorized access to one of its systems that leaked 72,000 user images, the popular mobile app faced a second issue involving a separate database, as a researcher reported to 404Media that they were able to access private conversations.

Tea Dating Advice, or just Tea for short, aims to provide a space for women to exchange information about men they know, have met, or dated in the past. The app seeks to provide a platform for people to share relevant information about, say, potentially abusive partners, and it claims to have more than 1.6 million users. After approving a new user, the system allows them to search for men by name, find people they know, and leave comments about them. Theoretically, men can’t access the app, so they have no recourse if they’re drowning in red flags and warnings on Tea.

The set of leaked images includes 13,000 selfies and photo IDs submitted for account verification including driver license photos, as well as 59,000 images from posts, comments, and direct messages.

While Tea acknowledged that a data breach occurred on a legacy data storage system, resulting in unauthorized access to a dataset from prior to February 2024, this is a completely different breach, and even worse for those involved. The researcher was able to see over a million private messages, stretching from early 2023 up until last week.

Kasra Rahjerdi, the researcher who flagged the issue, provided a database of more than 1.1 million messages to prove his findings. With the content of these messages at hand, it was trivial to find social media profiles, telephone numbers, and the real-world identities of most users.

They found messages from women discussing abortions, cheating partners, and other sensitive info.

One internet forum, 4chan, openly shared the images exposed in the first breach, but Rahjerdi informed only Tea and 404Media about his latest work, providing enough information to confirm their findings. But there is no way of knowing whether others used the same method to access Tea’s private messages.

Aside from how you might feel about the Tea app, its purpose, the users, and those intent on destroying it, the developers could have anticipated the scrutiny and attacks on their infrastructure. Leaks happen everywhere, but sensitive data should not be stored unencrypted. And, while Tea claims to donate 10% of it profits to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, the company still has a responsibility of safety (through cybersecurity) to its own users.

A Tea app spokesperson limited their statement to:

“We have engaged third-party cybersecurity experts and are working around the clock to secure our systems. At this time, we have implemented additional security measures and have fixed the data issue.”

Tea Dating Advice users will have to be vigilant since phishing attacks banking on these incidents might occur.

Protecting yourself after a data breach

While there are no indications that this database was found by cybercriminals before it was secured, it might have been. There are some actions you can take if you are, or suspect you may have been, the victim of a data breach.

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

We don’t just report on threats – we help safeguard your entire digital identity

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your—and your family’s—personal information by using identity protection.