As persistent and savvy as hackers can be, the last thing each of us needs is for the most popular sites and services on the planet to give these hackers a platform to trick people into having their data stolen. . Unfortunately, this is precisely what appears to have happened, as TechCrunch reports that cybercriminals have served Facebook ads for a bogus “Clubhouse for PC” app that is actually filled with dangerous malware.
Earlier this week, anonymous sources alerted TechCrunch that several Facebook pages were running ads announcing a supposed PC version of the Clubhouse app, which is an audio chat app currently only available on iPhone. Anyone who clicks the ad on Facebook is redirected to a website that claims to be run by the team behind Clubhouse, with a fake screenshot of the non-existent PC port and a link to download the scam app.
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Provided you have come across this ad before, hope you know not to click on it, but if you were to click on the website, download the bogus app on your computer and open it, the app would start trying to communicate with a command and control server that would send instructions on how to do this. TechCrunch refers to a sandbox analysis of the malware that showed it was trying to infect an isolated machine with ransomware.
A website advertising a fake Clubhouse PC app. Image source: TechCrunch
We can hope this serves as yet another uplifting tale for those who think they can let their guard down by clicking on a site as massive as Facebook, but it looks like the scam websites shut down shortly after TechCrunch was in. informed. Amit Serper, of research at Guardicore, tested the malware in a sandbox on Thursday and found that it had received an error. The malware appears to be inactive now that the websites are gone.
Being an invitation-only platform, it’s no surprise that hackers chose Clubhouse as a Trojan horse to trick unsuspecting Facebook users into asking them to download malware. In February, App Annie reported that Clubhouse had been downloaded over 8 million times, but over 3.5 million of those downloads occurred in the first half of February. It was a viral sensation, and hackers wanted to take advantage of the app’s runaway success.
TechCrunch notes that the Facebook pages containing the ads for the malware only had a few likes each, but they were still active when the site published its report. When TechCrunch contacted, Facebook did not say how many people clicked on the scam ads, and Clubhouse never returned a request for comment. The ads were at least removed from the Facebook ad library, but you can see what they looked like here.
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Jacob began to cover video games and technology in college as a hobby, but it quickly became clear to him that this was what he wanted to do for a living. He currently resides in New York and writes for .. His previously published work can be found on TechHive, VentureBeat, and Game Rant.
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