Scammers hijack websites of popular brands to insert fake phone number


Cybercriminals frequently use fake search engine listings to take advantage of our trust in popular brands, and then scam us. It often starts, as with so many attacks, with a sponsored search result on Google.

In the latest example of this type of scam, we found tech support scammers hijacking the results of people looking for 24/7 support for Apple, Bank of America, Facebook, HP, Microsoft, Netflix, and PayPal. Here’s how it works: Cybercriminals pay for a sponsored ad on Google pretending to be a major brand. Often, this ad leads people to a fake website. However, in the cases we recently found, the visitor is taken to the legitimate site with a small difference.

Read more…
Source: Malwarebytes Labz


Sign up for our Newsletter
The latest news and insights delivered right to your inbox.


Related:

  • CISA has expanded the scope of its alert on Iranian-affiliated hackers attacking critical infrastructure

    July 23, 2026

    The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has expanded the scope of its alert on Iranian-affiliated hackers attacking critical infrastructure, including water and energy facilities. The original advisory focused on programmable logic controllers (PLCs) manufactured by Rockwell Automation/Allen-Bradley. The update warns that the activity may also target devices from Schneider Electric, Siemens, “and potentially other branded/manufactured PLCs.” The conflict between ...

  • Russian State-Supported Cyber Actors Conduct Phishing Campaign Targeting Users of Zimbra Collaboration Suite

    July 23, 2026

    A group of Russian state-supported cyber actors has been targeting and compromising various Western government and commercial organizations using the Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) software since at least July 2025. The Russian state supported advanced persistent threat (APT) group’s activity is tracked in the cybersecurity community under several names (see Cybersecurity industry tracking), primarily as ...

  • Experts warn hackers could shut down entire power grids by hijacking cloud accounts

    July 21, 2026

    Whenever an AI data center thinks really, really hard, it can increase its power consumption so much to trigger disruptions and possibly even blackouts and gear malfunctions. So, is it possible for a malicious actor to trigger this scenario deliberately, in order to cause physical harm? Multiple researchers from the Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, wrote ...

  • Colombian energy giant Ecopetrol says thousands of user accounts hit in cyberattack

    July 20, 2026

    Latin American energy producer Ecopetrol has revealed it was victim of a ransomware attack, and while the threat actors managed to get away with sensitive data from thousands of user accounts, they were unable to deploy the encryptor and thus disrupt the company’s day-to-day operations. In a statement shared with the public, Ecopetrol explained how an ...

  • Inside an Exposed WebDAV Malware Delivery Lab

    July 20, 2026

    An MDR alert recently led our team to an exposed server that was doing more than hosting payloads. It was functioning as a fully operational malware delivery lab. Containing over 1,000 artifacts, the infrastructure served as a QA hub where attackers systematically tested delivery paths, social engineering lures, and WebDAV execution methods. Our analysis reveals an ...

  • FBI Warns of Scammers Impersonating the IC3

    July 20, 2026

    This Public Service Announcement contains updated information about an ongoing fraud scheme where criminal scammers are impersonating FBI personnel facilitating Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) complaints to deceive and revictimize individuals. This scheme combines several exploitation tactics to include the targeting of previous victims, the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-generated videos to create fictitious or misleading promotional ...