A Bard’s Story – how faux AI bots attempt to set up malware

My first “huh?” second was that the shortened URL didn’t embrace any Google reference however reasonably a hyperlink to rebrand.ly – a service with no apparent ties to Google and with places of work in Dublin, Eire. It appeared odd for an web big to be utilizing the companies of one other supplier and my suspicion was triggered. I then re-read the textual content of the commercial and though I’m not a local English speaker, I discovered it exhausting to imagine that nobody appeared to have proofread that reasonably complicated content material. 

I then proceeded to test the feedback part under the advert in pursuit of hints in direction of doable fraud, however to my (little) shock, all of them appeared to like “the app”. Referring to simply “the app” appeared reasonably basic, whereas others praised the “AI”, by no means mentioning Google in any respect. Some had been giving “a 5 Star ranking” (sic) – in a remark part?! By some means, miraculously, it appeared like everybody within the feedback had downloaded and examined the app on the identical time, solely to be writing their feedback at precisely the identical second – which in my case was “6 hours in the past” – solely including as much as my suspicions. 

I selected to fireside up my protected setting to analyze a little bit additional. First, I checked the rebrandly-Hyperlink at VirusTotal, which was flagged as malicious by 3/90 distributors. This can be a first indicator, however no proof in any respect, as this will likely even be a false constructive. 

So I went for it and opened the hyperlink in an nameless browser window – which turned out to be an ideal concept because the hyperlink led to an precise Google web site – hxxps://websites.google.com/view/12345328?fbclid=IwAR2V87sG77nklWVC1tLS-R-fjrL_nNNDhjtDorxKHkN56g8oNVV09Edjgwo  

Had I been accessing the location whereas logged-in to my browser, particularly with my Google account in Chrome, the criminals would have doubtlessly gained far more details about me than I’d wished! 

Whereas the location is hosted at Google’s cloud infrastructure, the content material is, after all, not associated nor supplied by Google themselves. It additionally offers away a couple of extra hints that one thing shady is about to occur, right here. First, let’s take a look at the web page title on the browser tab: “Trang chủ” (Vietnamese for “residence web page”). Moreover, it appears apparent, as soon as once more, that the textual content on the location hasn’t been created by a local or a proficient English speaker. This implies that the attackers behind this marketing campaign are based mostly in Vietnam, however after all, not at all that is ample proof.

The “Obtain” button then results in hxxps://drive.google.com/u/0/uc?id=1sn-Lzt-2vJ_i-6I9lkbGgr_-IN2TVcA-&export=obtain – a private Google Drive area, attempting to create the phantasm the marketing campaign was an official providing by Google, although it merely was an inexpensive imply of distribution for the attackers. 

The file downloaded is a RAR archive – GoogleAIUpdata.rar. Scanning it or importing it to VirusTotal doesn’t result in something helpful as it’s “protected” with a password. One would possibly surprise why if it was a real obtain from Google, you say? Properly, this password “safety” acts solely as a simple method for the attackers to get previous malware scanners – nothing else. For those who open the archive (with out unpacking it!) with the password “789” as supplied on the obtain web page, you’ll see that the archive accommodates an installer within the MSI (Microsoft Software program Installer) format – Google Bard AI setup.msi. Fortunately, unarchiving instruments like 7-zip present the choice to create SHA-256 (and different) file hashes, which then will be looked for on VirusTotal, once more, with out the necessity to unpack a doubtlessly dangerous file. 

Wanting up the file offers the final proof that it is a malicious marketing campaign. 26/59 distributors flag the file as malicious, with ESET gifting away a little bit extra data within the detection title. JS/ExtenBro.Agent.EK is a JavaScript agent which can attempt to alter your (browser) settings, stopping entry to sure safety vendor websites to eliminate it after an an infection, however principally it serves as Adware, displaying annoying and undesirable advertisements on mainly any web site you attempt to entry and promising the attackers cash with every advert displayed on a sufferer’s machine. 

On the time of writing the marketing campaign was nonetheless seen in several variations, however I reported it and can most definitely not be the one one doing so. Sadly, it appears that evidently this could be a much bigger marketing campaign as I’ve now encountered different examples as “meta AI” or different faux “Google AI” advertisements. In any case, this marketing campaign will be thought of a determined try and make a “fast buck” out of the present and ongoing AI hype, spreading ever so annoying Adware to make much more cash. On no account this has been a complicated marketing campaign in any way. However the unhappy actuality is that folks will fall for such scams within the hopes of getting their arms on the most recent applied sciences. One other unhappy reality is that we will not depend on tech giants akin to Fb and Google to supply 100% clear and protected environments.  

I hope this weblog publish helps a little bit in recognizing the chances and hints and easy methods to examine a possible rip-off or malware assault with out the necessity for costly instruments, proper from residence.