by Pieter Arntz at Malwarebytes
Researchers have found evidence that AI conversations were inserted in Google search results to mislead macOS users into installing the Atomic macOS Stealer (AMOS). Both Grok and ChatGPT were found to have been abused in these attacks.
Forensic investigation of an AMOS alert showed the infection chain started when the user ran a Google search for “clear disk space on macOS.” Following that trail, the researchers found not one, but two poisoned AI conversations with instructions. Their testing showed that similar searches produced the same type of results, indicating this was a deliberate attempt to infect Mac users.
The search results led to AI conversations which provided clearly laid out instructions to run a command in the macOS Terminal. That command would end with the machine being infected with the AMOS malware.
If that sounds familiar, you may have read our post about sponsored search results that led to fake macOS software on GitHub. In that campaign, sponsored ads and SEO-poisoned search results pointed users to GitHub pages impersonating legitimate macOS software, where attackers provided step-by-step instructions that ultimately installed the AMOS infostealer.
As the researchers pointed out:…
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