Malwarebytes has introduced Scam Link Check, a free web tool that lets anyone paste a suspicious URL and receive an immediate safety assessment. The tool scans the link using Malwarebytes' threat intelligence, checking for phishing pages, malicious sites, freshly registered domains, and redirect chains. Alongside a verdict of safe, dangerous, or unknown, it shows a screenshot of the page, explains the reasoning in plain language, and offers recommended next steps for users who may have already clicked.
The launch comes amid growing concern over cyber-enabled fraud. Malwarebytes cites an estimated $442 billion lost to scams globally, with about $21 billion lost by Americans in 2025, and notes that at the 2026 UN Fraud Summit governments reported organized-crime-run cyber fraud now outweighs the global trade in weapons, drugs, and human trafficking combined. The company's research also indicates that malicious websites outnumber other scam delivery methods, and that 85% of people say they can no longer reliably tell a scam from the real thing, up from 66% a year earlier.
Scam Link Check is one entry point into a broader Malwarebytes anti-scam ecosystem. Other tools include a Digital Footprint scan for exposed personal data, a Personal Data Remover for data-broker listings, a Scam Number Check for phone numbers, and Scam Guard, an AI-assisted detector available across Windows, Mac, web, and mobile, as well as inside ChatGPT and Claude. The company frames the approach as moving away from asking people to become scam experts and instead giving them an expert on demand. The source does not compare this tool with any competing offerings, so no independent assessment of its effectiveness is available.}? Wait, the last sentence about