Don’t trust mystery digits popping up in your search bar
Scammers are hijacking the search results of people needing 24/7 support from Apple, Bank of America, Facebook, HP, Microsoft, Netflix, and PayPal in an attempt to trick victims into handing over personal or financial info, according to Malwarebytes senior director of research Jérôme Segura.

It's a variation of SEO or search poisoning, in which the attackers manipulate the search engine algorithms to promote what is usually a malicious website masquerading as the real deal. In this new scam, the fraudster pays for a sponsored ad on Google and crafts a malicious URL that embeds a fake phone number into the real site's legitimate search functionality.

Because the ad resolves to the authentic Netflix domain, reputation-based browser filters, such as Chrome's Safe Browsing, won't flag it as malicious.

When someone searches "24/7 Netflix support," for example, the digital thieves' ad pops up as one of the top results, and when the unwitting victim clicks on the URL, it takes them to the help page of the brand's website.

The page looks real — because it is — but displays a phone number pre-populated in the search bar on that page. This purports to be the legitimate help-desk phone number, but in reality it's a fake, controlled by the attackers.

As the anti-malware security firm explains:

This is able to happen because Netflix's search functionality blindly reflects whatever users put in the search query parameter without proper sanitization or validation. This creates a reflected input vulnerability that scammers can exploit.

Windows 10's end-of-support date is October 14, 2025. That's the day that most Windows 10 PCs will receive their last security update and the date when most people should find a way to move to Windows 11 to ensure that they stay secure.

As it has done for other stubbornly popular versions of Windows, though, Microsoft is offering a reprieve for those who want or need to stay on Windows 10: three additional years of security updates, provided to those who can pay for the Extended Security Updates (ESU) program.

True or false? Apple supports macOS for three years. Apple’s security updates are sufficient. New versions of macOS are full of bugs. It’s safer to delay upgrading.