Attackers used a sponsored search ad to send macOS users to a fake “OpenAI Codex download” page hosted on Google Sites. The page convinced victims to open Terminal and paste a command that secretly downloaded and ran a multi-stage malware infection.
Mirage safely runs attacks like this one against your own team, so you find out what happens before a real adversary does.
On your Mac, you Google “codex macos download” and click the top result, looks like OpenAI, right? It’s a sponsored ad. That ad sends you to a Google Sites page that mimics an OpenAI Codex download portal. It even offers macOS and Linux, but the content is actually loaded through an iframe the attacker controls. The page tells you: “Open Terminal and paste this command to install Codex.” That command quietly decodes a Base64 URL, downloads a script, pipes it into zsh, and drops a helper file in /tmp, classic Atomic macOS Stealer–style behavior. Here’s the rule: if a website tells you to paste a Terminal command to install software, stop. Close it, and get the tool only from the official vendor site or our internal software portal.
Attackers are buying sponsored Google search ads that send Mac developers to fake OpenAI Codex download pages. The pages instruct victims to paste a Terminal command that looks like a normal install step, but actually downloads and runs a multi-stage malware payload.
A real-world social engineering attempt used a legitimate Google Doc to trick a target into manually running commands that installed malware. The attacker posed as a crypto marketing executive and used a fake “decryption failure” message and a “manual update” button as the lure, leading to an…
Researchers described AmnesiaStealer, a macOS info-stealer spread through a counterfeit “Download for macOS” page that tricks users into pasting a command into Terminal. The malware steals passwords and browser session data, and can even give an attacker live, hidden control of the victim’s browser…
Researchers observed threat actors creating attacker-made ChatGPT Custom GPTs that look legitimate, then steering users to a Google Sites “backup domain.” Victims are shown a fake Cloudflare CAPTCHA that tricks them into copying and running a malicious PowerShell command, which downloads and runs…
Unit 42 showed that default AWS AgentCore Harness settings can let an attacker use prompt injection to trick an AI agent into running shell commands and exposing plaintext credentials from AgentCore Identity at runtime. In their demo, a malicious support ticket embedded instructions (via hidden…
Attackers are using sponsored Google ads to route people to a malicious “custom GPT” that looks like ChatGPT, even while the user is logged in on the real ChatGPT domain. The fake GPT displays a convincing “service availability” message and pushes a link to a “backup domain” that ultimately…
