Recently, our team exposed sophisticated scam kits designed to steal sensitive data and trick consumers. But underground marketplaces are not just for malware and stolen passwords. They also offer services designed to manipulate your opinion of the products and services you buy every day.
In our latest research, we examined cybercrime forums where sellers advertise illicit “reputation management” services. For the right price, these underground operators offer to flood a product with glowing, five-star ratings or remove negative reviews. This shadowy industry works both ways—artificially boosting reputations and deliberately hiding legitimate complaints.
A major shift we are seeing in this space is the adoption of new technology. We also found that cybercriminals are using AI to automate these fake review campaigns. This could allow them to quickly generate realistic, human-sounding feedback in large volumes without much manual effort.
Read more…
Source: Malwarebytes Labs
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- StealC malware control panels could give experts the tools they need to spy on hackers
January 19, 2026
Cybersecurity researchers have managed to break into the web-based control panel for the StealC infostealer and gain valuable information on how the malware operates, and who both the attackers and the victims are. StealC is an immensely popular infostealer malware which first emerged a couple of years ago, and has since become one of the staples ...
- Firefox joins Chrome and Edge as sleeper extensions spy on users
January 19, 2026
A group of cybercriminals called DarkSpectre is believed to be behind three campaigns spread by malicious browser extensions: ShadyPanda, GhostPoster, and Zoom Stealer. Malwarebytes Labs wrote about the ShadyPanda campaign in December 2025, warning users that extensions which had behaved normally for years suddenly went rogue. After a malicious update, these extensions were able to track ...
- Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization data breach reveals info on 750,000 investors
January 19, 2026
The 2025 cyberattack at the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) affected roughly 750,000 Canadians, it has now confirmed. Founded in 2023, CIRO is Canada’s national self-regulatory body that oversees investment dealers, trading activity, and market integrity. In mid-August 2025, CIRO disclosed a cyberattack and data breach, saying it was forced to shut down parts of its ...
- RondoDox botnet linked to large-scale exploit of critical HPE OneView bug
January 16, 2026
A critical HPE OneView flaw is now being exploited at scale, with Check Point tying mass, automated attacks to the RondoDox botnet. The security outfit says it has identified “large-scale exploitation” of CVE-2025-37164, a maximum-severity remote code execution bug in HPE’s data center management platform. Check Point has tied the activity to RondoDox, a Linux-based botnet ...
- German police add Black Basta boss to EU most-wanted list
January 16, 2026
German cops have added Russian national Oleg Evgenievich Nefekov to their list of most-wanted criminals for his services to ransomware. Nefekov, 35, is accused of spearheading the Black Basta ransomware operation, which suffered a similar fate as Conti last year – ceasing activity after a major internal leak. His name and face also now appear ...
- Cisco has finally patched a maximum-level security issue
January 16, 2026
A maximum-severity vulnerability in certain Cisco products has finally been addressed after allegedly being exploited by Chinese hackers for several weeks. In mid-December 2025, the networking giant disclosed a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in AsyncOS that affects Secure Email Gateway (SEG) and Secure Email and Web Manager (SEWM) appliances. It tracked the flaw as CVE-2025-20393 ...
