TrendAI™ Research tracked a sustained malvertising campaign that abused Google Ads to deliver ClickFix social engineering attacks disguised as popular AI developer tools. The campaign impersonated at least six legitimate brand names, including ChatGPT Codex, Perplexity, Cursor IDE, JetBrains, Claude AI, and claude.ai, and simultaneously ran Mac utility scam lures.
By leveraging paid search ads targeting users actively seeking AI development tools, the attackers were able to target technically proficient users who are more likely to interact with command-line instructions without suspicion. This marks a sophisticated evolution of the ClickFix social engineering technique, where victims are tricked into manually executing malicious commands, typically by copying and pasting PowerShell or terminal commands under the guise of “fixing” a problem or completing a software installation.
Read more…
Source: Trend Micro
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- Europe-wide takedown hits longest-standing dark web drug market
June 16, 2025
Law enforcement authorities across Europe have dismantled ‘Archetyp Market’, the most enduring dark web marketplace, following a large-scale operation involving six countries, supported by Europol and Eurojust. Between 11 and 13 June, a series of coordinated actions took place across Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden, targeting the platform’s administrator, moderators, key vendors, and technical infrastructure. ...
- WestJet investigating possible cyberattack
June 16, 2025
WestJet has apparently suffered a cyberattack which has disrupted some of its services, including impacting the airline’s website and mobile app. The company confirmed the news in a security advisory posted on its website, noting, “WestJet is aware of a cybersecurity incident involving internal systems and the WestJet app, which has restricted access for several users.” ...
- Anubis: A Closer Look at an Emerging Ransomware with Built-in Wiper
June 13, 2025
A new ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) group has emerged and has been making a name for itself in 2025. Anubis is a recently identified group that sets itself apart by partnering encryption with more destructive capabilities—wiping directories which severely impact chances of file recovery. Given its brief history and use of a multi-layered extortion model, Anubis has all ...
- MyCert: Malaysia data breaches up 29% in Q1 2025
June 11, 2025
The Malaysia Computer Emergency Response Team (MyCert) reported an increase in data breach incidents in Malaysia in the first quarter of the year. “Data breach incidents are growing in Malaysia with a nearly 29% increase this quarter, underscoring the need for better security measures to ensure national security and public trust,” said MyCert. According to its ...
- US government’s vaccine website defaced with AI-generated content
June 11, 2025
A U.S. government website designed to inform the public about vaccines has been defaced and now hosts apparently AI-generated spam. The domain, which belongs to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), appears to have been hosting the same kind of content — mostly gay-themed and LGBTQ+ posts — since at least May 12, ...
- Toxic trend: Another malware threat targets DeepSeek
June 11, 2025
DeepSeek-R1 is one of the most popular LLMs right now. Users of all experience levels look for chatbot websites on search engines, and threat actors have started abusing the popularity of LLMs. kaspersky previously reported attacks with malware being spread under the guise of DeepSeek to attract victims. The malicious domains spread through X posts and ...