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:
- Hackers use Conti’s leaked ransomware to attack Russian companies
April 9, 2022
A hacking group used the Conti’s leaked ransomware source code to create their own ransomware to use in cyberattacks against Russian organizations. While it is common to hear of ransomware attacks targeting companies and encrypting data, we rarely hear about Russian organizations getting attacked similarly. This lack of attacks is due to the general belief by Russian ...
- FIN7 hacking group member sentenced to five years behind bars
April 8, 2022
A Ukrainian national has been sentenced as a member of the FIN7 hacking group. On Thursday, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) announced the sentencing of Denys Iarmak to five years in prison for working as a FIN7 penetration tester. FIN7, also known as Carbanak, is a prolific cybercriminal group that focuses on financial theft. Active since ...
- A Bad Luck BlackCat
April 7, 2022
In early December 2021, a new ransomware actor started advertising its services on a Russian underground forum. They presented themselves as ALPHV, a new generation Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) group. Shortly afterwards, they dialed up their activity, infecting numerous corporate victims around the world. The group is also known as BlackCat. One of the biggest differences from other ...
- Conti gang is still in business, despite its own massive data leak
April 6, 2022
The Conti ransomware gang is still actively running campaigns against victims around the world, despite the inner workings of the group being revealed by data leaks. One of the most prolific ransomware groups of the last year, Conti has encrypted networks of hospitals, businesses, government agencies and more – in many cases, receiving a significant ransom ...
- Feds slay dark-web souk Hydra: Servers and $25m in crypto-coins seized
April 5, 2022
US and German federal agencies came down hard on Hydra, the longest-running known dark-web marketplace trafficking in illegal drugs and money-laundering services, with a multi-pronged attack that aimed to cut off multiple heads of the nefarious online beast. First, German federal police in coordination with US law enforcement seized Hydra servers and cryptocurrency wallets containing $25 ...
- Bank had no firewall license, intrusion or phishing protection – guess the rest
April 5, 2022
An Indian bank that did not have a valid firewall license, had not employed phishing protection, lacked an intrusion detection system and eschewed use of any intrusion prevention system has, shockingly, been compromised by criminals who made off with millions of rupees. The unfortunate institution is called the Andra Pradesh Mahesh Co-Operative Urban Bank. Its 45 ...