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:
- Dish Network confirms network outage was a cybersecurity breach
February 28, 2023
Dish Network, one of the largest television providers in the United States, confirmed on Tuesday that a previously disclosed “network outage” was the result of a cybersecurity breach that affected the company’s internal communications systems and customer-facing support sites. Shares dropped over 6% on the news and a double-downgrade from Bank of America. Read more… Source: CNBC News
- “Major” cyberattack compromised sensitive U.S. Marshals Service data
February 28, 2023
The U.S. Marshals Service is investigating a major ransomware attack that has compromised some of its most sensitive information, including law enforcement materials, and the personal information of employees and potential targets of federal investigations. The cyberattack was considered a “major incident” by officials, impacting a “stand-alone” system (meaning it is not connected to a larger ...
- SCARLETEEL hackers use advanced cloud skills to steal source code, data
February 28, 2023
An advanced hacking operation dubbed ‘SCARLETEEL’ targets public-facing web apps running in containers to infiltrate cloud services and steal sensitive data. SCARLETEEL was discovered by cybersecurity intelligence firm Sysdig while responding to an incident in one of their customers’ cloud environments. Read more… Source: Bleeping Computer
- RIG Exploit Kit still infects enterprise users via Internet Explorer
February 27, 2023
The RIG Exploit Kit is undergoing its most successful period, attempting roughly 2,000 intrusions daily and succeeding in about 30% of cases, the highest ratio in the service’s long operational history. By exploiting relatively old Internet Explorer vulnerabilities, RIG EK has been seen distributing various malware families, including Dridex, SmokeLoader, and RaccoonStealer. Read more… Source: Bleeping Computer
- A Deep Dive into the Evolution of Ransomware Part 3
February 27, 2023
Ransomware is an ever-growing problem that has wreaked havoc across a multitude of industries, with astronomical ransom demands leaving businesses and infrastructure feeling powerless. From major hospitals to enterprises – no sector was immune from the impact of ransomware’s widespread infiltration in recent years. Trend Micro researchers discussed what triggers threat actors from changing their business ...
- LastPass: DevOps engineer hacked to steal password vault data in 2022 breach
February 27, 2023
LastPass revealed more information on a “coordinated second attack,” where a threat actor accessed and stole data from the Amazon AWS cloud storage servers for over two months. LastPass disclosed a breach in December where threat actors stole partially encrypted password vault data and customer information. Read more… Source: Bleeping Computer