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Malwarebytes telemetry collected from April 15 to July 14 found that fraudsters increasingly match scam types to the channels most likely to produce victims. The web remained the largest overall delivery route, followed by email and SMS; job scams favored email, romance scams social media, tech-support and IRS lures phone calls, and toll scams email or text messages. U.S.-targeted scam texts peaked around noon Eastern Time and on Fridays, indicating deliberately timed campaigns rather than random delivery.
Impersonation operations commonly exploited MrBeast, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and brands including Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Roblox, and Steam. Gaming-platform impersonation increased from mid-June to mid-July, and Malwarebytes assessed roughly half of gaming scams as carrying a potential victim loss of at least $1,000. Organizations should reinforce channel-specific phishing awareness, particularly for SMS and social-media lures, and alert users to unsolicited messages invoking prominent brands or personalities.
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Malwarebytes' analyzed scam-telemetry collection period ended on July 14, 2026. Its findings included scam-text peaks at noon Eastern Time and on Fridays, plus widespread impersonation of MrBeast and major technology and retail brands.
During the mid-June to mid-July 2026 period, Roblox-related scam activity increased 15% and Steam-related activity increased 19%. Malwarebytes identified Roblox, Steam, Discord, and Minecraft as the most impersonated gaming services.
Malwarebytes collected anonymized global scam telemetry covering more than 20 scam categories from April 15 through July 14, 2026. The data showed the web as the leading overall scam-delivery channel, with scam types tailored to channels such as email, social media, and phone calls.
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Multiple reports describe **social-engineering campaigns** that use trusted-looking lures (meeting invites, public-safety alerts, and official-looking documents) to drive victims to install malware or disclose credentials. Microsoft researchers reported a wave of **fake Zoom/Teams/Adobe update sites** reached via meeting-invite and document lures; the downloaded executables were signed with a **compromised EV code-signing certificate** (issued to *TrustConnect Software PTY LTD*) and acted as droppers for **remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools**, enabling persistent access. Separately, ClearSky described a suspected **Russian espionage** phishing operation targeting Ukraine that delivers a ZIP containing a Ukrainian-language border-crossing “permit” document, installing a loader (**BadPaw**) and a backdoor (**MeowMeow**) with file manipulation capabilities and sandbox/VM evasion; attribution was assessed as high confidence to a Russian state-aligned actor and low confidence to **APT28**. Mobile-focused lures were also reported: CloudSEK detailed **SMS phishing** targeting Israeli civilians with a trojanized **Red Alert** rocket-warning app, using a multi-stage loader chain to deploy spyware with **banking trojan** capabilities and exfiltrate **SMS, contacts, and location** to attacker infrastructure—raising concerns about surveillance and erosion of trust in official alerting. Other items in the set are either broader research or consumer-oriented scam advisories: a Zimperium write-up on the Android **“Massiv”** IPTV-app disguise highlights overlay-based banking fraud techniques, while Kaspersky’s mobile threat landscape report provides 2025 ecosystem statistics; two OnlineThreatAlerts posts describe generic **smishing** patterns (Amazon “refund” and flood-warning texts) without tying to a specific, evidenced campaign or new technical findings.
Jun 29, 2026
Acronis researchers reported a deceptive Android campaign targeting Israeli users with a trojanized version of the *Red Alert* rocket-warning app distributed via SMS messages impersonating Israel’s Home Front Command. The fake app displays legitimate rocket alerts to reduce suspicion while requesting extensive permissions that enable **GPS tracking**, **SMS interception (including one-time passwords)**, contact harvesting, installed-app enumeration, and account discovery; collected data is exfiltrated to a remote server, and the operators used **certificate spoofing** to make the installation appear as if it came from Google Play. Separate consumer-focused advisories described multiple **social-engineering/phishing** lures delivered via text, email, and calendar invites: an “Amazon recall” SMS that pushes victims to a credential-harvesting site for “refunds,” an “Apple Security Alert” pop-up/text/email that attempts to drive victims to call a fraudulent support number or surrender credentials/2FA/payment details, and a trend of **fake calendar invitations** increasingly appearing in Microsoft Outlook (previously more common in Gmail) using urgent subjects (e.g., “Final Notice”) and domain-reconnaissance to personalize invites; the Outlook example noted mixed authentication signals (DMARC/SPF/DKIM pass/fail across relays), underscoring that users and defenders should treat unsolicited invites and urgent account/payment prompts as high-risk even when messages appear superficially legitimate.
Jun 29, 2026
Multiple reports describe **social-engineering scams** that impersonate trusted brands and payment providers to drive victims into credential theft or direct monetary loss. A “crypto compensation” lure abuses a legitimate-looking *Yandex* poll as an entry point, then redirects victims to a fake Bitcoin payout page claiming an approved `0.943 BTC` transaction and imposes a small “commission”/fee to withdraw funds—classic advance-fee fraud wrapped in a polished, multi-step funnel (including a fake chat “support agent”). Separately, Japanese-language phishing emails impersonating **ANA**, **DHL**, and **myTOKYOGAS** show consistent infrastructure patterns (notably `.cn` domains in sender and landing-page URLs), suggesting a single operator or shared kit targeting Japanese-speaking recipients. Several consumer scam advisories highlight **SMS-based fraud alerts** that push targets to call attacker-controlled phone numbers, where scammers pose as “support” to steal **Apple ID/2FA codes** or payment details, or to coerce victims into moving money. One PayPal-themed case escalated to cash withdrawals handed to a courier after a victim called a number from an unsolicited text, illustrating how “fraud department” pretexts can transition from phishing to **cash-out theft**. Additional warnings cover lookalike payment sites (e.g., `payyourbill.aps medical.com`) and generic guidance on what to do after clicking a phishing link; these are broadly consistent with the same theme (phishing/payment fraud) but are not tied to a single, specific campaign or actor across all items.
Jul 2, 2026