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:
- Cyberattack fears raise the alarm in Eastern European countries
January 20, 2021
The cyberattacks that targeted multiple US government agencies and companies in recent months have raised the alarm in developing Eastern European countries regarding their own cybersecurity capabilities. During the past year, some of them, like North Macedonia, have already experienced breaches of their state IT systems: last summer, the country had its electoral process disrupted by ...
- VPNFilter Two Years Later: Routers Still Compromised
January 19, 2021
With the internet of things (IoT) gaining more popularity, common IoT devices such as routers, printers, cameras, and network-attached storage (NAS) devices, are becoming more frequent targets for cybercriminals. Unlike typical operating systems such as Windows and macOS, users are less likely to patch IoT devices. This is because users find the task more difficult and ...
- FBI warns of vishing attacks stealing corporate accounts
January 18, 2021
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued a notification warning of ongoing vishing attacks attempting to steal corporate accounts and credentials for network access and privilege escalation from US and international-based employees. Vishing (also known as voice phishing) is a social engineering attack where attackers impersonate a trusted entity during a voice call to persuade ...
- Medical Device Security: Diagnosis Critical
January 18, 2021
A hacked insulin pump is the last thing a diabetic wants to worry about when life-saving fluids are pumped into their body. Sadly, concerns about medical device IT security are a healthcare reality. Last year, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued more than a half-dozen warnings tied to connected drug pumps alone. Vulnerabilities ...
- Ransomware attacks now to blame for half of healthcare data breaches
January 15, 2021
Almost half of all data breaches in hospitals and the wider healthcare sector are as a result of ransomware attacks according to new research. Ransomware gangs are increasingly adding an extra layer of extortion to attacks by not only encrypting networks and demanding hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in bitcoin to restore them, ...
- Hackers leak stolen Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine data online
January 12, 2021
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) today revealed that some of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine data stolen from its servers in December was leaked online. EMA is a decentralized agency responsible for reviewing and approving COVID-19 vaccines, as well as for evaluating, monitoring, and supervising any new medicines introduced to the EU. “The ongoing investigation of the cyberattack ...