Fake ChatGPT installs an infostealer

With the popularity of ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, cybercriminals has been using it to lure unsuspecting victims to online scams. Recently, the Sonicwall Capture Labs Research team has come across a scam promising the most powerful version of this AI chatbot only to install an infostealer.

Infection Cycle:

This so called better version of ChatGPT is hosted on a website that promises the download of its AI tool which outperforms and is more advanced than ChatGPT.

The website even links to the promotional Youtube video of the legitimate ChatGPT-4 from the original developer, OpenAI.

The user gets a password- protected RAR archive from the download link on this malicious website. This password is conveniently provided on the website and upon execution runs a Microsoft software installer file (msi).

The rar archive and the msi file use the following file names:

• ChatGPT4_V2_3.3_Setup.rar
• ChatGPT4 V2 3.3 Setup.msi

It opens a popup box that will guide the user to a seemingly legitimate program installation.

It drops the following files in the program files directory:

Upon completed installation, it opens the chrome browser to OpenAI’s real website which will lead  the victim to believe that the real ChatGPT from the original developer was installed.

But silently, it spawned the command prompt to run the batch file named gpt4.bat which started the Chrome browser and loaded a browser extension named “dmkamcknogkgcdfhhbddcghachkejeapgpt4.”

To hide its real intent and to make it sound benign, this malicious extension is named “Google Translate.”

After careful examination of the original file that was installed as a browser extension we found that it was an obfuscated javascript file whose primary function is to steal facebook cookies presumably to use stolen credentials to further this online scam.

SonicWall Capture Labs provides protection against this threat via the following signatures:

• GAV: Fake.GPT (Trojan)
• GAV: Fakechrome.EXT (Trojan)

This threat is also detected by SonicWall Capture ATP w/RTDMI and the Capture Client endpoint solutions.

Security News

The SonicWall Capture Labs Threat Research Team gathers, analyzes and vets cross-vector threat information from the SonicWall Capture Threat network, consisting of global devices and resources, including more than 1 million security sensors in nearly 200 countries and territories. The research team identifies, analyzes, and mitigates critical vulnerabilities and malware daily through in-depth research, which drives protection for all SonicWall customers. In addition to safeguarding networks globally, the research team supports the larger threat intelligence community by releasing weekly deep technical analyses of the most critical threats to small businesses, providing critical knowledge that defenders need to protect their networks.